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Feb. 9, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:16
February 9, 2006, Thursday, Hour #3
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Welcome back to our community forum here at the Rush Limbaugh program.
Community forum, that's what I usually say in my local show.
In the Rush Limbaugh program here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, and you can just jump right in at 1800-282-2882.
And I wanted to get back in in the previous uh segment, if you're just joining us, we were um regaled by the thought that as Hillary Clinton and uh the socialist uh compatriot Bernie Sanders, Congressman from Vermont, are extolling the virtues of a new quote marshall plan, unquote, for GM and Ford.
The idea being that what GM and Ford really need is more money out of your paycheck into their coffers.
This is a serious proposal now by someone who wants to be the president.
Okay, stop laughing.
Uh because this caller pointed out, here's how bad it is at GM.
They actually have a labor contract with the United Auto Workers that requires that if they have to lay anybody off the job, that somebody has to go to a job bank.
Basically a rec room, watch TV, read uh newspapers as it was described here on the program for eight hours during which they are paid for doing nothing by GM at their previous rate of pay when they were doing something.
So now they don't build cars, but they do get paid.
Now, if this sounds like the farm program, I'm sorry, there are parallels here, uh, but it doesn't make GM a uh exactly a world player in competitive terms, does it?
Because uh Toyota doesn't do that, ladies and gentlemen.
So let's get some more detail.
Here's Chuck in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Chuck, welcome to the Rush Show.
Uh Megadetto's um Mega UAW Ditto.
I'm really nervous, so you'll have to excuse me.
Uh first time caller.
Um Well, Chuck, I appreciate listen, I appreciate your call.
Now just calm down, take a deep breath.
Tell me what you know about these job banks.
Okay.
First of all, um, despite what your previous caller said, no, you can stay at home.
You have to go to your mailbox to pick up your check, you know.
Which uh and I have to go to my mailbox.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's hell.
Um basically, um what it is is it's if they close down your plant within a certain distance, like I forget what it is, fifty miles or a hundred miles, if there's no work available, you stay at home.
I have a friend um, this is before I even started with, I've only been there eleven years in the UAW, but I have a friend who I knew before.
Yeah.
And when Electromotive in LaGrange closed down, he stayed at home.
You know, and he picks up his check in the mailbox and uh.
Yeah, it's just it's amazing.
So he doesn't have to go to the job bank, he doesn't have to read papers and watch TV at the job bank.
He stays home and they and how long has he been staying home and they pay him anyway?
It's been twelve years now.
Twelve years.
I'm not gonna be able to.
Okay, thirteen years.
He hasn't had to get another job.
Nope.
He sits at home.
Why would you?
You know.
Well, what uh Chuck, what do you think?
You're a UAW member.
Right.
Well, I'm probably gonna be ostracized when I go back to work.
Um because uh I am one of the few uh conservative UAW members, you know.
So now let me let me just Chuck, let me just ask you though.
D y are you currently working actually making cars?
Yes, making trucks.
Trucks in Indiana.
All right, so you're working at the plant, you're making the trucks, your buddy's sitting home, he's getting a check.
You're actually having to work for your check.
How is that fair?
Speaking of fair.
Well, there's so much in there that, you know, doesn't seem fair.
It's just, you know, it's amazing.
It's you know.
I guess I couldn't go on and tell you, you know, how certain people have jobs that you just wonder, what are they doing?
I see them walking around all day, not carrying a clipboard or anything, just walking around, you know, they're UAW members.
Like, well, you know, I want that job.
But uh Yeah, that's basically maybe you haven't risen far enough in the ranks of the union.
Well, that could be, you know, and with my attitude of uh conservativism, I probably never will.
You probably won't.
That's exactly right.
You're not socialist enough to get those kind of jobs.
Yeah.
However, you know, for the first time.
And they need conservatives.
Chuck, look at it this way.
They need conservatives to actually build the trucks.
The liberals are out are out getting the paycheck, but they don't want them near the actual machinery.
Right, right.
However, for the first time, I may vote for a uh Democratic president, you know.
That sounds pretty good if uh Hillary fails us out, you know.
Chuck, I appreciate your call.
You've done very well.
Thanks for calling the Rush program.
I I ladies and gentlemen, is there any doubt in your mind why GM and Ford are having a problem?
They're having a problem because they cannot run a business.
They're running a welfare agency.
They're running the farm program.
They're running the federal government, you know, a mini federal government, more concerned about the health care benefits of retirees and people who aren't working than they are about producing a product people want to buy at a price they can afford to pay.
And like I say, you know, we talk about Japanese companies, Toyota, that uh lifetime employment and you get guaranteed, and and there's none of this thing about capitalism like we have in the United States, and I've heard all that from the left.
Wall Street Journal today carries uh this article, headline Toyota considers Michigan as site for new engine plant.
Toyota, which had formerly been, you know, around uh what uh Kentucky and Alabama and West Virginia and places like that where they have low taxes and no unions and all that, they're talking about going back into Michigan.
Now, where in Michigan are they going?
All in as they put it, um, although they put the state of Michigan among the top potential sites for their new engine plant, which would create hundreds of new jobs at a time when General Motors and Ford are cutting back.
Uh he says, Well, it's southwestern Michigan.
Southwestern Michigan.
The areas around Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, that part of Michigan is more or less, as they put it, free of the influence of the United Auto workers.
So that Japanese can set up a non union plant, so that the people who will get paid and paid well be people who are actually producing cars, not sitting home.
You know, trudging out to the mailbox.
Working hard to get out that mailbox, get that check.
Come on, ladies and gentlemen.
The way to go on Ford and General Motors is to give them a subsidy out of your paycheck so more guys can sit home and get theirs.
That's the basis of Hillary's run for president.
My goodness.
Let me shift gears to the cartoons because uh I have been um so glad to be joined by lots of other folks.
Andrew Sullivan's essay in time for the February thirteenth edition, Time magazine, uh right on point.
Your taboo, not mine.
The furor over cartoons of Mohammed reveals the zealots double standard, writes uh Sullivan.
Just a terrific um just a terrific expose, an essay on this whole thing.
Here's a little bit of it.
He writes, uh Muslim leaders say the cartoons are not just offensive, they're blasphemy, the mother of all offenses.
That's because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the prophet.
Well, should non-Muslims respect this taboo?
I don't see any reason why.
You can respect a religion without honoring its taboos.
I eat pork, and I'm not an anti-Semite.
As a Catholic, I don't expect atheists to genuflect before my altar.
If violating a taboo is necessary to illustrate a political point, then the call's an easy one.
Freedom means learning to deal with being offended.
Let me say this again.
Freedom means learning to deal with being offended.
Your being offended doesn't mean you can shut down my free speech.
That's what freedom means.
Sure, he says, uh the he says the West's principles are clear enough.
Tolerance, yes.
Faith?
Absolutely.
Freedom of speech, non negotiable.
Good essa uh good essay and one that uh you should check out.
Uh finally, too, and let me praise we'll get back to jobs here in a minute, but let me praise uh Condolisa Rice again, our Secretary of State yesterday, flat out, just went right for the jugular on this cart these ginned up cartoon uh related Mohammed depicting uh uh demonstrations we've seen, burning and shooting and looting and so forth in the name of I mean, what do they think this is?
New Orleans?
Come on.
Uh Condoleesa Rice, Secretary of State, uh, out saying, Look, Syria and Iran, you are deliberately inciting this outrage so that you can get ordinary middle of the road Muslims to agree with your extremist jihadist nonsense.
You're trying to make this violence a political issue for you.
Of course they are.
Of course they are.
And again, it's befuddled the poor Danes.
We're three and a half million people, so tolerant and so diverse and so wonderful and so accommodating, and how can you possibly uh burn our flag and uh burn our embassies and uh boycott our goods?
I mean, do that to the Americans, we understand, but doing it to us, oh, we're so superior, we're so tolerant, we're so twenty-first century, and and and yet here you are attacking us.
Yeah.
Because you Danes aren't Muslim yet.
Now, were were you Muslim, then there wouldn't be a problem.
See, this is the whole thing about the jihad.
So Iran and uh Syria came under fire today from um Condolisa Rice and uh God bless her, let's uh call it as we see it.
By the way, we have a chance in Syria, let's get rid of Assad, can we please?
Former Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Kadam, the exiled leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
These guys, they are extremists, they are uh the jihadis, but they want to topple Bashar al-Assad too.
Somewhere along the line, we've got to get rid of these dictators and start getting some people who make some kind of sense of don't we, somewhere?
Because otherwise, hmm.
We're not headed toward the right road here.
I want to get back to this jobs issue.
Let me take a short break first.
Roger Hitchcock in for rush back after this.
In fact, in our society, the jihad against Christianity continues.
In Deltona, Florida, the uh city has banned three paintings from a city hall display, paintings that were part of a black history month display, because they contain references to the Christian faith.
A painting showing black history, referring and uh let's see, there's uh I'm looking at the painting now, and here's the at a bedstand here with an alarm clock and a and a lamp, there's a book, and you can just see the the title of the book, O L Y, and below that L E, so it could be Holy Bible.
Uh and because of that, you can't show that painting.
You can't show that.
Oh my goodness.
And then there's I see oh, wait a minute, I see part of an E and then an S U S. That could be Jesus.
Oh no, get that painting out of there.
Ho ho, can't be offended anybody.
Unbelievable.
Free speech has got to mean something in terms of the free exercise of religion.
That's you know, I got my old copy of the Constitution, the one before.
You know, Warren uh Earl Warren got a hold of it.
Uh I I've got one that has, you know, the first amendment's original form.
No interference with freedom of uh religion and speech.
What happened to that?
Brian in Detroit, Michigan, you're next.
Brian, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi, Roger.
Uh great to be on.
Thanks for taking my call.
I'm actually from uh Auburn Hills, Michigan, which Rush know which Rush also refers to as well, we can't really say it.
But I'm right by the palace in the Silver Dome of Auburn Hills and Pontiac.
So I know a lot about this jobs bank.
Yeah, what about what about it?
What do you know?
I'd love to inform everybody who doesn't know anything about this.
Uh maybe I can be a uh a guest teacher.
Anyway, in 1984, still reeling after half a million job loss from the recessions of the 70s and the 80s, the UAW felt they had to protect the workers that were left, so they came up with this contract.
I think it was 83 or 84.
And uh GM Ford Chrysler all c agreed to contribute, and GM is two billion into it.
Diamond Chrysler DCX is set aside half a billion.
Ford has set aside almost a billion, and there's currently twelve thousand workers in the jobs bank that are being paid not to work.
And that's since 1984.
GM's got five thousand in it.
Delphi has four thousand, twenty-one hundred from Daimler Chrysler.
Um I mean, it just goes on and on and on.
Wow.
I'm in shock.
Twelve thousand people are being paid not to work.
This is all off of uh Detroit News had a front page article on it that did a did a great job of highlighting exactly what the jobs bank is.
It was from October 18th of last year.
Anyone can Google that.
Twelve thousand paid not to work.
Now, would I be wrong?
I mean, here I'm I have known nothing about the auto industry.
Why wh would I be wrong in assuming that this has got to be one of the big reasons why these companies are having problems and going into talking about bankruptcy, cutting back on further jobs, closing plants, not being competitive, etc.
Well, how can any company pay that amount of workers?
I mean, take the average salary of twenty seven to thirty one dollars an hour plus health care, sixty five bucks an hour times twelve thousand people, and figure out what that cost per year.
And these are the people that were set as are the people that are displaced by if Ford GM or Chrysler has any innovation or any process improvement that takes them off the line, they're guaranteed the work.
So not only do they have to develop the cost and the equipment and pay other suppliers to develop that tooling and buy the tooling and install it and run it and function it, they start to pay for the work of the other replaced.
So we're really saddling our our auto industry here to to become non-competitive.
But the thing is the UAW contract is up in 07, I believe mid-07, and this is going to be a major sticking point.
Because back in 84, we didn't we never knew that the you know nobody could foresee what was going to happen the the way things are nowadays.
Wow.
Well, Brian, you've done a a real service.
I uh completely new information to me, and I appreciate the call here on the Rush Show.
Now more information on the Toyota plant in Michigan from Jeff on a cell phone in Kalamazoo.
Hi, Jeff, welcome.
Hi, Roger.
Hey, um last night I just caught the end of what you're saying about Toyota.
And last night on uh Channel Eight News um in Grand Rapids, I'm in Kalamazoo, they had on there that Toyota's pulling the plug on the Southwest Michigan project for the engine plant because of the protests recently of UAW workers at where Toyota execs were having a meeting in Grand Rapids.
And uh they had that on it was supposed to be a new story tonight, too.
They're doing some follow-ups on it about the poll of that engine plan of thousands of jobs.
So there's another boost of our economy in Michigan, thanks to UAW.
In other words, the UAW, uh maybe it's because Toyota had uh I wanted to put up a plant where they were gonna ask people to actually build engines.
So the UAW, the deal now is we want the jobs, but we don't want to actually do any work.
We we just want the money.
You know, I I have two gym vehicles, and it makes me when I saw that last night, it makes me want to go test drive a Toyota this weekend and maybe put a down payment on one of those and start driving something else.
So an incredible situation.
So you're saying the UAW union thugs went down and and Mau Mowed this meeting in Kalamazoo or in that area, and uh and the Toyota people just s horrified at that said, okay, we're out of here.
Right.
That was on uh Channel 8 News just last night and this morning, and they're having a follow-up story today on that.
And I think Wood TV eight has a website, and you can go to that and probably see it right on there.
Well d we'll we will do that, uh, Keith, and I appreciate your call, Keith on a cell phone there.
Uh I'm sorry, um Jeff on a cell phone.
Let's go to Keith on a cell phone.
That's where I wanted to go.
Fort Worth, Texas.
Hi, Keith, welcome to the Rush Show.
Hey, how are you?
Good.
I'm uh calling about the uh tap issue that you were discussing earlier.
And I'm an attorney in in uh Texas and uh have always been a Republican and then I was extremely proud back during all the impeachment stuff with Clinton that the Republicans emphasize over and over and over, it's the rule of law, the rule of law, the rule of law, it applies to everyone, and that's all we're trying to do is enforce the rule of law.
What disturbs me about the Republican response to the wiretap criticism is that the people are addressing the issue of the president should have the authority to check these al-Qaeda contacts, and I agree with that.
What I don't agree with is how nobody appears to be giving a reason why that size of court deal either won't work or it will work, but it needs some kind of tweaking.
Uh you would have expected people like uh Attorney General Gonzalez to have said, well, it'll work, but we'll need more time, even though we can get the warrant after the fact we need uh five days instead of three days or whatever.
But I I don't understand the rationalization because it is a law and let me let me try, Keith.
Because I think this is important for you to understand.
Uh I am also a lawyer, although I'm a rec a recovering lawyer.
Uh I graduated from Hastings uh College of Law in San Francisco and the University of California system, and I practice law, and uh and I and so I understand what you're saying.
But what every president since uh Carter when FISA was first put in in this late 70s, even Carter's people said uh Article II during time of war overrides this.
Congress cannot, as an as a ther as a the three coequal branches of government, uh the Congress as one of those cannot interfere with the uh duties of another coequal branch of government.
The president under Article II, as the commander-in-chief during war, has the duty to uh defend and protect the United States of America.
Uh in Congress cannot impose on that duty restrictions that keep him from doing it, which is what Gonzalez did explain last Monday in this hearing.
Uh FISA does not work in this modern era of communications.
And that's, I think as simple as I can make.
Welcome back to the Rush Show.
Love this blubber music.
Uh 1-800-282-2882, and uh shakedown.
Uh I'm speaking of lawyers.
Lawyers know how to uh conduct activities that would be otherwise uh labeled with such unpleasant uh labels uh such as uh shakedown uh blackmail, uh bribery.
Uh those those kinds of things can be done by lawyers in a way that, well, gets the same objective, you understand, but doesn't seem so well unseemly.
For example, a letter has now been uh uh uh taken to the uh White House by um to um White House counsel Harriet Myers, by the way, dated February 6th from uh Michael Brown's lawyer, Andrew W. Lester.
And according to CNN.com, uh Michael Brown, of course, the former disaster agency chief there, doing a great job, Brownie.
You remember that uh whole business.
Uh he is no longer a um federal employee, you understand.
And he is now being asked to come forward because Democrats are in full howl about who knew what when about Katrina, so forth and so on.
This is another thing they're mining for their hate Bush, anti-Bush, because that's all they've got uh program.
So he must have he must have really wanted to kill black people in Katrina.
We've we've heard the witnesses, we really want the memos, we want the email that says, go down there and kill black people because I know it's there.
So the letter comes in from Andrew W. Lester, quote, unless there is a specific direction otherwise from the president, including an assurance the president will provide a legal defense to Mr. Brown if he refuses to testify as to these matters.
Mr. Brown will testify if asked about particular communications, quote unquote.
And of course, Mr. Brown's desire is, quote, to see that all the facts are made public, unquote.
In other words, unless you pay this lawyer, Mr. Bush, unless you pay my lawyer, I'm gonna blab about everything I can think of to make you look bad.
So I better get some money here.
But it's done in such a nice way.
Oh.
John on a cell phone in Yonkers, New York.
John, welcome to the Rush Show.
Hi, uh Roger.
Yes, it's thinking pleasure speaking with you.
I've been trying to get through for a long time.
My wife and I were speaking.
I'm on my way to work.
And uh, what about the uh the the farmers that are paid not to work?
What about him?
It's in the thing as bank, the government pays them not to produce any any food.
I agree.
And another dean rogers, I'm a custom broken freight forwarder.
I'm 65 years old.
I've been going to the dock since I was 16 years old.
Years ago they used to call them gangs.
Gangs of fix gangs of eight.
One gang work while the other gangs uh play cards.
Talks of money rolling all over the place.
What do you call that?
What do you call it?
It's a guy.
It's the same thing as a top band, guys that work.
Members of the Teamsters were getting paid to play cards.
I know I saw the thing is that the I saw this on I saw this on the Sopranos.
John, you know, the guy's down at the construction site there, you know, sitting around the shed while the rest of the people are actually constructing the building.
Yes.
Well, it's a it's all the same thing.
It's a big racket.
It's a racket, and nobody's doing a lot of the what this is going to do is protect the working kind.
Get rid of all these damn unions.
Yeah, the globe.
Hey, John, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
And you know what?
Uh let's go back to this.
Everyone working for a living ought to be working.
If you want a paycheck, you ought to be producing something for it.
Now if we want to go the other way, then I want a marshal plan for radio.
And I'm going to sit home and go surfing tomorrow.
And I just like, you know, uh just when you go to the blank air on the on the air, uh, instead of hearing me, it just means that I'm getting my paycheck and I'm surfing because that's the new America.
That's the Hill Hillary's America.
That's how crazy that I mean it's crazy.
Grow uh pay people not to grow wheat.
And I know both parties are involved in this, and I know there's a whole history on that issue.
But please, I still don't get it.
Pay people not to grow something.
Hello.
Robert in Saginaw, Michigan.
Rah uh Robert, welcome to the Rush Show.
I agree with that.
Don't you know paying people not to grow things.
That's stupid too.
They ought to let them grow stuff and let them just, you know, sh sell it to whoever they want.
Anyways, I'm calling on this jobs bank thing.
Yeah.
That guy that called in must have been from management from some place.
Because I work for I mean I'm with the UAW.
I've been there for six years.
And um this uh jobs bank started when see, when management uh when they made changes and stuff like that, and they had to lay management people off, what they would do is they would pay them for a year to pretty much sit down and do nothing so that way they wouldn't hire out somewhere else.
That way they wouldn't lose their people.
And pretty much the same thing.
So the same program for um for management, but it was only for a year.
We had uh we had a guy call up and said his friend was on it for thirteen years.
No, no, the only uh you're only for this for a year.
Okay, because that's uh I found a lot of this stuff because I thought a lot of this stuff was crazy too.
And you you don't hear the whole story on a lot of stuff.
This is only for a year that you get paid to do this.
Okay, and and they're the management and they're talking about cutting us down to ten dollars an hour, but yet I didn't hear anybody talk about how they want to pay three hundred and fifty million dollars in bonuses to management people after they cut us down to ten dollars an hour.
If they're hurting so bad for money, why are they taking our money away to give it to management?
Okay, well, I got other UAW guys who are telling me that this thing is for life unless you and until you retire.
I don't know about this.
I mean I've only been around.
Well, it's twelve thousand workers who are are supposedly in this job bank thing.
Uh not the management types, the the you know, the workers.
Uh things was beginning of this year saying they had no people on jobs bank for Delphi.
Okay, so I can just tell you what what's that Delphi?
And as far as I know, it's only for a year.
And personally, it's for life, it's ridiculous.
You know, nobody no com I mean, then no actually it'd be the government.
You know, we got plenty of people who don't do work but yet they get money, and I'm not agreeable on a lot of that.
Well the g the GM president took a a cut yesterday of fifty percent in his pay.
Huh?
Huh?
I'm sorry, I was like, The GM, I didn't want to shock you, Robert.
The GM uh uh president took a and the and the ch and the uh I think the um second guy too took a cut of fifty percent in pay.
Oh geez, you know, over at Delphi our our president took a hundred percent cut.
He said he'd take a dollar, but he still kept this three million dollar bonus.
I'd say I'd I'd take a hundred percent cut, you know, keep three million dollars.
He gets like what, one and a half million dollars a year.
Yeah, but he's running the whole company.
Well, he's running the whole company.
What do you do?
Hey, I got uh I work on the line.
What do you think of the cars that you I build the parts that go in the cars?
What part do you make?
Uh steering.
The steering wheel.
Yes.
Uh we steering wheel.
Yeah.
Well, that's important work, man.
Hey, I appreciate the call, Robert.
Uh let me get to another Robert here in Fort Madison.
Uh go ahead.
Uh Robert, you're on the air.
Yeah, I'm here.
Go ahead.
Yeah, uh really I've never heard much said about this, but um if we don't push ahead with the the NSA wiretaps and the Patriot Act, and Al Qaeda manages to get through to one of our cities in a major way, not a couple buildings, where they get nuked or uh germ warfare or uh biological attack.
Uh we'll have to kiss our civil rights goodbye.
Because we'll be a police state overnight.
And I just never hear anybody say anything about that.
It's an interesting point.
In other words, the point I made is similar to that the uh yesterday was look, you know these Democrats that are uh objecting to the uh NSA uh uh intercepts, they're the same ones if there was another attack on the United States, you know in a heartbeat they'd be have a press conference blaming Bush for not protecting the American people.
Well, they would have to shut down the country.
I mean it it would be uh you w because they'd be as scared of another city getting hit and people moving around carrying a a weapon of some sort.
I'd I really just can't see anything but uh but uh well what they used to call Fortress America, I think.
Yeah, and uh another words uh an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Yeah.
Civil rights right now, right now.
I appreciate it.
Uh here's Elizabeth in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hi, Elizabeth, welcome to the Rush Show.
Thank you, Roger.
Um, I have a rebuttal to the those in Congress, especially our Senator Reed, who's in opposition to monitoring phone calls.
Uh if through surveillance or telephone monitoring, they discover an attack on Congress is imminent.
Does Congress want the President to take immediate action to protect them?
Or should he insist that the President wait seventy-two hours and first get approval from a judge?
I would I would love it.
I mean, the the Capitol Hill blows up.
I don't want to see this happen.
But just I'm just I'm I got the metal picture.
Capitol Hill blows up and uh Bush goes, Hey, I got the intercept.
I could have warned you, but you know, we had to go down to FISA and uh and get some kind of piece of paper first.
I mean, come on, I'm just trying to go by your rules.
I think they want the seventy-two hours so they can be sure the enemy gets advanced warning of what we're gonna do.
Hey, I got a question for you in Las Vegas.
Okay.
What is this uh uh President uh Jimmy Carter's son, Jack Carter's running against uh uh what on John Ensign?
Oh, yeah, he's a carpet bagger type.
He just moved into Las Vegas so he could do that.
Well, I was well, so did everybody else in the last ten minutes.
Come on, I've been to Las Vegas.
People are there from all over the world.
Uh but Elizabeth, look where isn't he from like uh well, I don't know.
Is he from Plains, Georgia, or what's the deal?
He well, I I'm not sure where he's really from, but I know where he's not gonna go.
He's not gonna go to the Senate for Nevada.
By the way, you gotta think about Hillary.
Remember she copied all those FBI files?
Yes, she did.
So if he became president, you can imagine what the monitoring would be.
Yikes.
Be personal.
She'd be looking at my my tax returns.
Well, Elizabeth, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, InfoRush Limbaugh.
Taking your calls at 1-800-282-2882 after this.
You're back on the Rush Limbaugh program here at the EIB network.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, filling in for Rush Tom Sullivan tomorrow, rush back on Monday and Rush Live, of course, uh not live.
He's uh taped with uh Neil Cavuto from yesterday at Rush Limbaugh.com.
Okay, now I was thinking about this idea on the job bank issue, where workers uh up to twelve thousand of them, according to one caller, are paid full pay for not building cars, trucks, and engines and all that stuff for sitting at home.
I mean, having to slog out to the mailbox once a week and you know a couple times a month, maybe and pull in the the paycheck.
Um it seems to me uh let me offer this free.
I don't I don't even want to be compensated.
I don't want a consultant contract, I don't want to be lionized in the financial press in any way, shape, or form.
Uh it seems to me that these are the jobs GM and Ford ought to be sending overseas.
I mean, I can imagine, for example, instead of thirty bucks an hour, that uh an Indian or uh Pakistani or somebody would do this work for three dollars an hour.
I mean, they'd sit in their yurt uh in their wigwamp, whatever it is, uh, and get three dollars an hour.
I mean, GM would be better off if they outsourced the job back.
What do you think about that?
Here's Eugene in Pennsylvania.
Eugene, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hey, how are you doing, Roger?
All right, what's up?
Not much.
Hey, I used to work uh as an intern for Haunt of American Manufacturing in Marysville, Ohio.
They produced all the Camries and uh I'm sorry, not the camera, all the accords and the civics there and some other smaller lines.
The uh the engineers there used to brag that they were at seventy-eight percent the amount of man hours per per unit produced compared to the UAW.
So not only do the is the are these uh American motor companies straddled with these jobs banks and and crazy stuff like that, but it proves that you know it takes twenty-two percent less less pay and workers to make to make a car just because the people actually work a little bit harder.
Now, why is that?
I mean it's the same workers, they're American workers.
Well, the mentality there there's a it the mentality I believe it's the mentality that's created by the UAW.
They they feel that they're owed what they get, and and Honda, they pay them great.
They they start them on at $18 an hour and they're up to $30 an hour after Five years.
So it's nothing to laugh at.
I mean, they don't get the crazy amount of vacation and stuff, but you work or you're gone.
Work or you're gone.
Kind of un-American stuff is that.
Work and you're gone, or you're gone.
Good grief.
Yeah, I mean, if you're a terrible worker, you're gonna get fired.
If you're late, you're gonna get fired.
Try firing a UAW worker.
There's there's no way.
It's impossible.
Uh yeah.
That's totally impossible.
All right, Eugene, thanks.
So there you go.
American workers in a plant run by the Japanese with no UAW, good benefits.
The Japanese, by the way, pay good benefits, and I think we know that.
Uh and pay and pay well in terms of the hourly.
So he's saying within five years you can go up to thirty bucks an hour.
I mean, these are guys, you know, maybe out of high school, working in those in those jobs.
This is uh blue-collar jobs in the traditional American industrial sense where you can do make a good living without having that college education.
Building those uh good Now, let me tell you something.
You know, I you go to the Parker ratings and all that, you'll find out that that uh Toyota car is uh more highly rated than the comparable American built ones uh in a whole lot of ways.
So uh they're building a better car, arguably, with fewer labor hours in it, and no union contract, and the good workers get promoted and the bad ones get shown the door.
Which plant, the one run by the American company or the one run by the Japanese company, more adheres to traditional American values.
Oops.
Here's Brenda in Saginaw, Michigan.
Hi, Brenda, welcome to the Rush Show.
Um hi, Mr. Hedgecock.
Um I'm calling about my own personal experiences with the jobs bank.
I've been employed at two different General Motors facilities in Saginaw.
They're both foundries.
One of them is on the verge of closing, and I transferred from that one to a larger foundry that is downsizing at this point in time.
But in both cases, jobs banks were put into effect in in those foundries, and what happened with the people who went into the jobs bank was that they were put to work in non-traditional roles.
In other words, they weren't performing in their normal capacity.
And they did continue to receive their full paycheck, but they weren't sitting home and collecting it.
What were they doing?
Oh, some of them were put to work assisting in the engineering department.
Other people were put to work reorganizing our storeroom uh facility there in the plant where we draw our materials to do various jobs, and other people were put to work doing janitorial work.
It was a variety of jobs, but no one stayed home and collected a check.
So now that may happen with some people.
I can't speak for all General Motors facilities, but in the two facilities where I've been employed, that has been the practice.
Yeah, Detroit News is reporting that twelve thousand uh folks are uh doing nothing.
Uh they're not doing non-traditional, they're not uh, you know, uh tidying up the rec room or whatever.
Uh they're they're sitting home.
Detroit News.
I don't know.
I'm Roger Hedgecock In for Rush.
Short break back after this.
Roger Hedgecock in for Rush Limbo.
It's as far as I want to go imitating their uh music.
Philip in Memphis, Tennessee, next on the Rush Show.
Hi, Philip.
Um glad to see you sitting in.
Uh I'm I'm gonna pack up a little bit, but this is very important.
The Iranians are fixing to go before the Security Council on the UN.
Syria is fixing to go before the Security Council in the UN uh for the killings in Lebanon, the assassination.
Guess who's fixing to be sitting at the head of the table of security at the UN?
Who?
The Danes.
Denmark is up for the chairmanship of the Security Council?
Yes.
Isn't that amazing?
Oh, this is gonna get more interesting than I thought.
Now what yeah, now what's gonna happen if they want to show any backbone in exact any punishment, you can hear them screaming already.
It's gonna be interesting because is Denmark the question really is is Denmark then gonna go the way of the appeasement uh socialist government of Spain, or are they gonna get a backbone like Britain and uh stand up for Western civilization?
Are they gonna stand up to the Iranian terror uh and the fact that those uh those people are about to get a bomb with a missile that can hit Europe?
Oh, this is gonna get interesting.
Rush, thanks for letting me fill in.
I appreciate it very much.
I'm Roger Hedcock, Tom Sullivan tomorrow, rush back on Monday.
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