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March 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:18
March 28, 2006, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Okay, welcome back, folks, and here we are from the Big Apple, the uh EIB network high atop the EIB building.
We are uh serving humanity today, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
The Rush Limbaugh program uh behind the original Golden EIB microphone, I might point out.
Telephone number if you'd like to be on the program today, 800-282-2882, and the uh email addresses rush at eIB net.com.
I'm in New York because our annual night of the century cigar dinner.
Well yeah, we call it night of the century.
Uh we actually call it night to remember, but I joke around and call it the night of the century because it's it's uh it's it's big.
It's a black tie affair.
It's uh it's cigar dinner and it it's it features uh auction items, and the the beneficiary of all the fundraising that will happen tonight is uh the CapCure Foundation, the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Uh Michael Milken will be there matching personally every uh dollar that is raised.
There's always surprise items, big ticket items, little things.
It just runs the gamut.
Uh in fact, I you know, I just remember something.
One of the things I ended up buying at the auction last year was a Super Bowl ticket for every team from a Las Vegas uh sports book.
And so it didn't matter uh who won.
I'm the winner because I got every team at whatever odds when the tickets are bought.
It's Steelers won.
I gotta go f I gotta find those and turn them in.
I don't know what the odds for the Steelers were, but uh uh I just remembered that.
Now a lot of people have asked me, wait a minute, Rush, you're in New York, right?
Yeah.
But there's no smoking in New York.
It's not allowed.
How can you do this?
Aha.
Actually, a very good question.
Two years ago, we were not allowed to do it.
We couldn't get an exemption from this.
You have to apply to the Department of Health to get an exemption if you want to do something like this.
And all the employees at the place have to have to sign on to the idea that they know that's gonna be happening, and it's uh in fact, you know, well, a little off the beaten path here, but uh there is a movement among some uh restaurants and bars in this town to change the whole structure of uh employee relationships to actually give them stock in the company so that they are quote unquote investors and not employees.
So they have purposely have a stake in it, and so regulations that come along and say, well, you can't can't allow smoking in there because you're forcing the employees to inhale as secondhand smoke, and even worse, and you uh you're you're impacting their health in a negative way.
This is there there are all kinds of economic tools available to people that try to try to beat this.
It's gonna be very, very hard to do.
But you have to apply for an exemption.
Now, last year, get this.
Last year we applied for the exemption.
We got it.
And the day of the event, we heard from the Board of Health.
I said, by the way, you can only smoke after dinner.
After dessert.
We said, what the hell is that?
It's a cigar dinner.
Everybody's coming here expecting to smoke five cigars during dinner and five more after.
That's why they're here.
I don't uh the city don't care.
Go to court.
Had to take drastic action.
The way we solved it, we served dessert first.
The food is just an interruption at this dinner anyway.
Uh but uh tonight the honored guests are Joel Cerno and Howard Gordon of the show 24.
Uh they were they were profiled in the uh in the uh first issue of this year.
Last year Michael Jordan was there as he was he was profiled.
Uh it's just it's a great it's a great, great night.
I I am this year's official co-host.
I have last year it was Mayor Giuliani.
I have attended every one of these things.
I have yet uh to miss one.
And uh it's I mean it sells out.
Uh we do it at a restaurant that holds uh like we put about a thousand or twelve hundred people in there.
Uh yes, I will be off tomorrow because I've I've got some I'm glad you reminded me of that so I could tell the people I will be off tomorrow, but I I can tell you this, we'll have on Thursday when we get back to Florida.
Uh I'm not sure the time yet, probably around 1230 or 1 o'clock, but uh we'll have Joel Cerno on the program.
Yes, we're going to we're gonna talk to Joe.
And I'm I'm gonna try to talk him into taking some phone calls uh so people can ask him some questions about the about the uh program.
Mark Belling will be filling in uh uh uh on the program tomorrow.
But it's a great night here.
It's always uh it's fun to see all the people that show up, and they come from they come from all walks of life.
They come from the entire political spectrum.
But the great thing about this uh the cigar dinners in my experience uh uh in smoking cigars is they're a great bridge.
They uh they bridge gaps uh that exist between people and some of the some of uh people I've gotten to know that I would consider really, really close friends uh I met as a result of attending uh events such as this.
It's it's actually sponsored by Cigar Ficionado magazine.
Marvin Shankin has uh has put this together uh from the from the get-go is a good friend of mine, and excuse me, as you know, and he's asked me to co-host it uh this year, and it's just a hoot.
And I will have a full report for you on uh on Thursday.
No, I'm not taking any.
Why do I why would it why would I want to take anybody to this?
The they used to be stag.
But but but uh uh after a while we opened it up because some women actually we didn't think women would want to come, you know, room full of cigar smoke.
Uh, but after a while they started requesting that they come, so wives now come, girlfriends, barmaids, uh, concubines, whoever, you know, you never know who you're gonna see.
It's just it's a hell of a good time.
But no, I I get mobbed at these things if I were to if I were to take somebody I'd never see them anyway.
And they'd just get jealous.
You know, and I I don't want to put anybody through that, so I care.
Uh and I'm sensitive, and I I I just, you know, I'll I'll I'll find other places to find uh companionship.
Now, this is great news.
Just cleared the wire.
Do you um you remember the couple, the grandparents, the Martins?
They were driving along in their Cadillac toward Jacksonville, they're on I-75 in Florida.
And like all of us, they had uh radio in their car that receives cell phone call signals.
And uh, like all of us, they also have the recorder uh in their car that uh would record these cell phone calls that their cell phone radio receiver receives.
As they were driving along, I think they were headed to a shopping mall to do some Christmas shopping for their cute little grandchildren.
And they're fiddling with the dials.
They couldn't find anything on the real radio that interested them, so they turned on their cell phone receiver, and lo and behold, they heard a conversation and they thought that they were listening in on history.
They thought that they were a privy to history is what they said.
It was a phone call between John Boehner, who is now the uh the uh Republican majority leader, uh, and Newt Gingrich, back when he was the speaker running the House of Representatives.
And these people were listening to the phone call, and Boehner and Newt were discussing strategic about how they were going to smoke the Democrats and some legislation that was coming up.
Well, this couple, thinking they were l just just tuning in on history, just knew they had to share this with somebody.
They just knew they had to.
So they racked their brains.
Who should they call?
Should they call the media?
Should they call No, they called Jim McDermott.
Baghdad Jim McDermott, who is a congressman from uh state of Washington, and they sent him the tape of the phone call between Newton and Boehner that they had recorded in their car while listening to their cell phone radio receiver.
McDermott then gave the tape to the New York Times.
The New York Times transcribed it and published the transcript of the phone call.
Boehner sued over the illegality of this and the violation of privacy.
Today a federal appeals court has ruled that Representative Jim McDermott violated federal law by turning over an illegally taped telephone call to reporters nearly a decade ago.
In a two-to-one opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that McDermott violated the rights of House Majority Leader John Boehner, who was heard on the call involving Speaker Newt.
The court ordered McDermott to pay Boehner more than 700 large.
$700,000 for leaking The taped conversation.
The figure includes $60,000 in damages and more than $600,000 in legal costs.
McDermott leaked the tape of this phone call to the New York Times and other news organizations.
The call included a discussion by Gingrich and other House leaders about a House Ethics Committee investigation of Gingrich.
Boehner was a Gingrich lieutenant at the time, now his House Majority Leader.
A lawyer from McDermott had argued that his actions were allowed under the First Amendment and said a ruling against him would have a huge chilling effect on reporters and newsmakers alike.
So illegally recorded in the first.
You can't do that.
You can't record people's phone calls when they don't know it's happening.
You can't use them, well, you can't do it, but certainly you can't use it for anything legally once you've done it.
But it's a violation of privacy.
But what's interesting to me about this is that now here's the the the this investigation, the NSA thing, that's underway.
Justice Department's still looking at there's illegal leaking there.
And some of it may have originated uh in uh the hallowed halls of the United States Senate.
We remain to learn the details and the and the truth about that.
Uh but here the the appeals court, DC Appeals Court said in a slam dunk move is illegal, you can't do it.
Uh and it's I don't know how precedent-setting it is for this other case, but it still it still does establish uh at least in one area where the law still matters.
There were lawyers for 18 news organizations, including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the AP, the New York Times, the Washington Post that filed a brief backing McDermott.
So no mention of in this story, I don't, yep, no mention in the story of the uh the cute little uh grandparent couple, uh the Martins, uh, and and how the tape was made, which is why I spent time at the beginning of this setting the stage for you so you know how in the world this tape came to exist in the first place.
Because it if you if you if you were like the Martins and like most of us and have a cell phone radio receiver in your car, be careful.
Because if you uh if you record it and then do something with it, uh and it's discovered, you are in uh heap big trouble unless you're an illegal immigrant and promise to learn English and then you're cool.
Back in a moment.
You know, folks, there's a way of looking at this Jim McDermott uh uh situation, fined a total of 700 grand by the D.C. Court of Appeals for uh illegally providing to the new to the New York Times and media uh an illegally taped telephone conversation.
What was this?
When you boil it down, what did the Martins do?
The Martins engaged in an illegal, warrantless intercept.
And they were facilitated and aided by McDermott.
Given the current climate, we need to start a censure McDermott move because he has violated constitutional rights.
He participated in a warrantless intercept or spy program.
You would have to say that a perfectly innocent private conversation between Boehner and Newt was the victim of a spy program, and there was no warrant.
I say this to illustrate the um once again the hypocrisy here, the Democrats wanting to censure George Bush for essentially doing what they are trying to defend in court as perfectly legal and it'd be chilling to shut this down because it would limit what the media can do.
Now, folks, uh I we we can talk about holes in security all we want.
We can talk about how the fact that this poor guy, David Sanborn, who uh had the unfortunate uh uh thing happened to him, he happened to work for DP World once.
Not even in the Emirates.
Uh in different kinds, ransom terminal operations for DP World.
President Bush nominated him to be the head honcho at the maritime agency of the U.S. U.S. government.
Head the head head honcho of the policing the seas and so forth.
And John Kerry and Bill Nelson have uh told the president, we're gonna kill your nomination, we're not gonna allow it to go to the Senate because he once worked for DP World.
So the president pulled the nomination of David Sandborn, an American, a member, ex-member of the Navy.
All because he worked for DP World, he poses a security risk and a security threat to the people of the United States.
And John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, and Bill Nelson are not going to let this let this threat occur.
They are going to protect this country while signing on to the illegal immigration bill.
They're going to make sure that David Sanborn does not get in a position to threaten with security of this country.
Now, talk about holes in security all we want.
Try this.
An embarrassing hole in security surrounding former U.S. President Bill Clinton turned up when one of his chauffeurs was found to be a wanted man.
Shazad Kureshi, 42, was in one of three cars awaiting Clinton at Newark International Spaceport last week when a port authority policeman happened to check license plate numbers.
The computer came back showing that the Pakistani national had skipped a residency status hearing in 2000 and a deportation order had been issued by the immigration and naturalization service.
Kureshi was still in jail Monday awaiting immigrant processing, uh the report said.
Now I would like to know a lot of things here.
If how much was Bill Clinton paying the illegal immigrant?
Was he actually on Bill's staff or does Bill use a car service?
Maybe Bill used a car service.
I would I would think not.
I would think as an ex-president, you're gonna know every day who's driving you.
Uh you and your car and in your caravan, because I don't think you go through security checks every day.
So how did this guy um illegal immigrant get past all of the security?
I mean, you would have to think that there would be security for an ex-president uh would be pretty tight.
So you have to assume that this was known.
We have to assume if it wasn't known, that's just as bad in its own way.
So assuming that it was known by Clinton or his office that they had an illegal immigrant as a chauffeur, were they doing it to escape paying top dollar?
Did they do paperwork on the guy?
Pay him in cash, keep it all under the radar, but he saves time and money by going around uh uh regulations.
And you know, w was this Pakistani national uh uh uh any Arab descent at all?
If so, how could an Arab be allowed to be so close to an American president?
We can't even have an American who worked for an Arab company run a maritime uh agency here.
We can't let an Arab country run the ports, the terminals.
But we can let a Pakistani illegal drive around the ex-president of the United States.
Talk about a hole in security.
Meanwhile, Clinton's over in Great Britain telling the people over there that we, the people of the United States, envy them and envy their country.
I've got nothing against the Brits.
That's not the point.
And that I love this I love the place when I go.
I really do.
But why go across the pond and rip your own country?
I know what Clinton's trying to he this is his way of complimenting them.
But in the process, he just can't help himself.
He's gotta take a swipe.
He was he was he's been extended all kinds of courtesies by the Bushes.
Uh they practically adopted him into their into their family, and he has shown no no similar inclination.
He has not extended similar courtesies himself.
Just it's all about him.
Self-focused, like I have never seen him, so other than actors and actresses.
I mean it's that's and it's probably that's probably why they like him.
He's one of those guys.
Self-focused, phony baloney plastic monot, patch you on the back, say what's going on, whatever you want to hear.
Here's Stephen in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Stephen, I'm glad you call.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you very much, Rash.
I appreciate for taking my call one more time.
Um I just wanted to say I really agree with Senator Feinde what she said about uh illegal immigrants.
I think part of the big problem of illegal immigrants in this country, uh mean being one of those at some point, I'm I'm legal now.
I think it's the policies of the United States.
If you have a tyrant or uh a dictata in your country, uh there's a flaw of immigrants coming into this country.
From Castro to Idi Amin to Mugabe and all that.
They're flocking in this country.
They're not asked whether they speak English or they don't speak English.
For some of us who are coming, I'm coming from Tanzania, East Africa.
If you don't have a dictator in Tanzania, coming here is absolutely like climbing Mount Kilmanjau.
It's so hard.
Stephen, hang on.
This doesn't surprise me.
I mean, I I I in fact, yesterday, one of the observations I shared with uh with with my audience here was that you can look at the protests in Los Angeles and uh uh now don't Stephen, don't go away.
I want I want to keep you after the break here.
Uh time is dwindling down for this segment.
Well you one ways to look at all this is forget all these people saying we've lost our reputation and uh and and respect, forget all these people that say our country is is is going to hell in a handbasket.
The fact is it's still the one place on the planet everybody wants to show up and come and be part of.
And we have no problem with that.
It's just the illegal side that this argument is about.
I'll continue with you after the break here.
Well, this is really fascinating to watch in uh in Paris, uh riot police and uh broken out.
Uh tear gas and water tanks uh being used to break up these uh protests in Paris.
These people are going nuts over there, all because uh Dominique de Villipin, who everybody on the left of this country has thought was the greatest guy that ever came along during the whole UN Security Council debate over what to do about Iraq.
This guy is is about ready to have to resign in disgrace or run out of the country for save his life because uh he uh proposed this law that says, Yeah, you can get fired.
We can fire you with no cause.
And the reason is the the the French don't like that.
They want the the job they have to basically just be a welfare check.
Don't have to work, don't have to show up on time, don't have to do what's necessary, uh to keep a job in most places, uh, but it's it's just it's causing the the uh the country un untold problems because you just can't keep hiring people you don't need.
So the unemployment rate in France is sky high and it's going higher.
And uh de Vilipin wanted to give employers a little power to run their businesses.
And the French, who have uh bought into a socialist system and expressed their desire for it and actually voted for a socialist system, uh, are learning now that it can't sustain itself.
And they don't want to deal with the reality.
And so the government says, look, we're gonna we've got to make some changes here, and uh you you know they can fire you if if uh even without cause.
Uh if you're 26 years old, and boy, the the the kids over there are just going nuts.
And it and everybody knew this is coming.
It's fascinating to watch it.
I w I love this stuff because right in front of our eyes daily, we see evidence wherever we want to look in the world that socialism doesn't work, that big governmentism doesn't work, uh all the derivatives of communism, be they liberalism or socialism or what have you, Maoism, uh, they don't work.
And here's a classic example of the government realizing they got an untenable situation, but the people that they have catered to uh and and have and have given uh circumstances that basically equal a cushion, realize that can't sustain themselves, they're gonna take it away.
And if you can't do this.
Now I understand the right to protest.
I couldn't happen to a nicer bunch as far as I'm concerned, but still fascinating to watch this.
All right, I want to go back now to uh Stephen in Greenfield, Massachusetts, who came here originally as an illegal, now you're legal.
Uh uh you mentioned Diane Feinstein.
Grab audio soundbite number five, because I want people Stephen, you're still with us, I trust, right?
I'm here, yeah.
All right, I want people to hear what Diane Feinstein said that you are reacting to.
It's only eight seconds long.
It's at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday.
They pay taxes, their children are Americans, they go to schools, they're good citizens, and they're needed.
All right.
Now, uh Stephen, let me give you political reality in this country.
That is a pure pander.
The Democratic Party is trying to secure the Hispanic vote in this country much of the as they've secured the black vote.
She called illegal immigrants citizens.
She praised their work ethic.
She talked about how we can't do without them.
Now, nobody on the other side of the aisle uh has anything deleterious to say or derogatory about them as people, as human beings.
We don't even know them.
It's just the concern that we the concerns are two.
A there's illegal and are we going to enforce our laws?
Obviously, uh in in this circumstance, we're not going to enforce our laws.
So we come up with a new set of laws that we think we've defined this down, just like defined deviancy down.
We've defined what we're going to do and our standards on the illegal immigration, we've defined them down.
Second thing that we're worried about is unlike you, y i I'm I can tell talking to you, you have come here, you have assimilated, and you are an American.
You didn't set up a Tanzanian enclave where you didn't learn English and you only associated with fellow citizens from Tanzania and and basically just establish uh you know a remote outpost in America of your foreign country.
What we're concerned about, some people are concerned about is that there's not going to be enough assimilation going on.
They're not going to learn English.
They're not going to uh uh discover the unique American culture that you discovered in your journey here and in your life here.
That's what the concern is not that they're bad people.
Well, I agree with you, Rosh.
Uh I mean what I I wanted to correct one thing.
I came here legally, and then in between I became illegal, and then I retain my status back.
I think the problem really here is as I said at the beginning, the policies of the United States toward immigration have contributed a lot to this.
And now you have come to a point whereby you really to be fair, you have to legalize these people in order to know who is here.
I mean, you have to acquire the.
You've got to explain something to me.
You said uh the uh we the policy of the United States toward immigration have contributed to this.
How so?
Uh uh I'll explain to this.
Right now, if you're from Afghanistan coming here, it's easy to come here.
If you're from Iraq coming here, it's easy.
As well as it was from if you're coming from Uganda when I Demin was there, if you're coming from Zimbabwe, if you're coming from Cuba, it's if you're coming from Russia, the the the policies of the United States was if you are against communism.
Oh, you are you're talking about political asylum.
Okay.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Now they don't ask do you know English or you don't know English?
If you whether you know English or you don't know English, as long as you are against Castro, you're here.
As long as Well, no, you've got to get here first.
If we if we in the case of Cuba, I don't want to get dragged down too many details here because we're gonna lose the point, but case of Cuba, if they get to our shores, they're here.
If the Coast Guard intercepts them at sea, they can send them back.
And that happens.
Now, but but we're getting off a beaten path because in when in terms of of southern immigration, the southern border with Mexico, nobody down there is fleeing a tyrant.
Nobody's down there fleeing political oppression.
They may be fleeing poverty.
But half half the world's fleeing poverty, but we can't well, go ahead, what were we gonna say?
No, I was saying what what you're doing though, you uh saying, okay, if you're running from tyrants, you're welcome.
If you're running from, well, if there's no jobs in your country, no, no, no, no, you're not welcome over there.
See, the ambiguity of immigration policy...
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We're not saying to anybody you're not welcome.
There is a process.
And and and and in truth, you know, the people you're talking about go through the process.
They declare political asylum, they go through like you did.
You came here legally, you became a citizen after uh losing your status for a while.
Right.
We're talking about people who are gaming the system.
Rosh, what is the process if you're just offshore Florida, you're already okay here, if you're from Castro regime, is that a process really?
I mean, that's not a list.
That's a bad thing.
Why is there politics in all this, Stephen?
There's a there's a there's a there's a there's a huge uh Cuban exile community that lives in Florida.
They're a very powerful political block.
They are they're a largely entrepreneurial, uh entrepreneurial, and and and uh so Castro is a sworn enemy of the United States, got an embargo against the country.
It's stupid embargo, it's absolutely silly, but we we have it.
Um and and so, you know, we have this this situation where every every uh circumstance is different.
That's why there's a there's a a system to deal with all of this.
Uh can't treat everybody the same.
You just it's not possible.
There are too many different sets of circumstances, but you try it, you try to come up with a policy that does get as close to um uh uh uh fairness uh as you can, but we're not even blaming the system uh for illegal immigration is is a bit of a stretch.
That's uh uh uh I I don't I mean that that's that's that's an excuse that they might offer uh to try to turn it around and make themselves uh appear to be a little bit more heroic.
And they've succeeded, I think.
Uh there's almost now a heroic aura that has been attached by supporters to these people.
But uh Stephen, here's the real thing.
Uh this is the real thing to learn.
If you want to understand what's happening here, I cited the uh evidence from two polls today, NBC Wall Street Journal and an Aquinope Act College poll.
Both polls show overwhelmingly that huge majorities of America are opposed to illegal immigration and consider it a huge problem.
The people of this country who who hold that view, which is the majority, are being ignored.
And instead, the news today is filled with stories about how we must covet these illegals.
There are too many, we can't enforce deportation.
We've got to welcome them in blah, blah.
It's pure political pandering and hoping on by both parties that they can reach out and get as many people from this community, the Hispanic community, to vote in elections for their party.
Uh so i all of this is politics and it it it takes a while sometimes to understand the uh the American political system.
I appreciate the call.
Thanks much.
Vinny in Queens, your next welcome to the program, sir.
Tiddle's great one.
Thanks for uh taking my call.
You bet, sir.
Yeah, it's all right to your call screener.
Um we we had decided on a topic I was gonna hit we hit you with, but just real quickly to Steve, I don't need a lawbreaker telling me how I should view immigration, and he was an admitted lawbreaker, and I really don't care to hear his explanation about what this country should do.
I love you guys from Queens.
I got I just I love you.
You just get right to it.
Well, uh what I'm really here to ask you though is I remember you made a statement about two years ago, and you said a lot of the or or uh the main reason we don't see a lot of deportation is because of the pictures that would be sent back from the border, and that would the American people would be shown on their televisions day and night of of families being being busted out over the border, and um just how the mainstream media would have a field day.
And would America have the stomach to to see this through.
Now, uh at first I thought they did, and I was I was uh I was uh bumped up by the two polls you just mentioned, but then I got to thinking, you know, we had these same good feelings and we had the stomach for it at the beginning of the Iraq war.
And I'm looking at it now and I'm seeing support for the president dwindle uh when it comes to Iraq, and I wonder if we would really have the support to see this through.
Um partially because of the reasons you had mentioned a few years back.
I just don't think a lot of us do have the stomach for it.
Um, I don't really know what the answer is, and I don't know if anyone truly does know what the answer is.
And I guess I'm just I just feel a little you know, a little beat up today over over just everything that's been happening.
I I see the same thing.
You sound a little you so Vinny, this is unlike you.
You sound you sound a little defeatist on me out there.
You're making it sound like you don't think that no, by the way, nobody is is uh seriously suggesting deportation.
That's what that number of eleven and twelve million people is uh is used consistently, because uh it it would uh, as they say, it would be a practical impossibility to uh to do it.
And then where do you send them and how do you what kind of transportation it's you know, move you move eleven million, but and what kind of period of time we talking about?
I mean, you can't do it in a week, can't do it a day, you couldn't do it in a year, probably, and you you you so um but the what what that represents to me is see this is not the first time we've done this.
We did this back in 1986.
And it and in 86 it resulted in the legalization of four million illegals.
My problem, we keep compounding the problem because what we end up telling everybody, the the Congress does, we can't enforce.
So I ask myself, well, what about these new provisions in the bill that came out of Judiciary Committee?
What we're gonna make them learn English.
They're gonna make them pay a fine.
Well, what if they say no?
We're gonna deport them?
It's easier to deport single violators than it is to find and round up eleven million illegal immigrants and and deport them.
Are we gonna do that?
I don't think so.
The stories in the paper today.
Parties must pay close attention to how they are perceived in dealing with enforcement, do not want to make illegals angry.
Hispanic vote at risk.
Well, that's all you need to know.
So the the the pot the problem I have is that no enforcement seems likely.
Uh I hear you when you're saying we don't know what the answer is.
Because if you accept the notion we can't deport, even if we wanted to try it, we can't deport 11 million, then what do you do?
Well, that's what this bill attempts to do.
Say, okay, we got to move forward.
We're going to come up with a plan that allows them to actually become legal, but we leave it up to them.
They're going to show up, they got to turn themselves in, they got to pay a thousand dollar fine, they've got to learn English.
We're not gonna I I doubt that there are going to be uh swarms of agents fanning around the country trying to round up the illegals because they don't run around wearing a t-shirt and says I'm illegal right here.
Find me.
It just doesn't happen.
Quick timeout, we'll be back and continue in just a second.
Oh, yeah.
In the top five, all-time favorite tunes, Al Wilson show and tell.
Back to the phones.
Uh Russ in Lewistown, Pennsylvania.
Great to have you with us, sir.
Thank you.
Megadidez from Central PA Rush.
Yes.
Uh other than the immigration reform bill, the other big news story today seems to be the resignation.
I I'd say the surprise resignation of Andrew Card.
And this is a uh gentleman that's been with the president five years.
Uh served under really tough circumstances, as you know, during uh 9-11.
And uh we really care about this.
Do we care about it?
Do you think it's that big a deal?
Well chiefs of staff come and go.
The the gentleman is replacing him, Josh Bolton is someone who's I think fairly unknown, and I was wondering what your take would be on how that would change the administration, or is this the beginning of uh uh a sweeping change in the cabinet and and everything is people like Fred Boris?
This is this is totally normal.
Second term administrations generally there's more turnover than there's been in this one.
This is the first major uh change in this administration uh since it started.
Well, as of the uh well, it is free it's it is the most major change.
I don't think it signifies anything other than cards tired, wants to move on.
There's somebody perfectly qualified to step in and do the job, Josh Bolton.
I've met him, nice guy's brilliant uh budget expert.
Uh and uh, you know, I I I think the the media is more concerned that it wasn't Carl Rove.
Uh but we have a montage since you brought this up.
We have a montage of how this is being treated, and once again, the the drive-by media is on the case.
No matter where you turn, they have the same phrase to describe this.
Is this a shake up or is this just uh rearranging the deck chairs?
Like a rearranging the deck chairs, not really a major shakeup, simply rearranging the deck chairs.
The President of the United States needed to uh rearrange the chairs, and you're basically just moving the chairs in different directions.
It just it's just read rearranging.
The only thing I didn't say is on the Titanic.
But we're we're we're rearranging the deck chairs.
They don't even think it's that big a deal.
And Andrew Card uh, in fact, is as chiefs of staff go, uh, was probably less uh visible uh and and his whatever power he wielded was less visible than uh than many chiefs of staff.
Leon Panetta, chief of staff was with Clinton, was out there constantly.
John Podesta, when he was uh Clinton's chief of staff, constantly out there, was on television, was doing all kinds of interviews.
Andy Card is uh has been pretty much invisible.
I don't I don't think that it uh uh signifies much other than uh uh a rearranging of the uh the deck chairs.
We'll be back after this.
Okay, we have about a minute.
Donna has been waiting from Fresno, California.
Hi, Donna.
Uh, welcome to the program.
Thank you.
You know, I'm so upset and so feeling betrayed by President Bush when I heard him say yesterday that the the illegals are the backbone of our economy and that they are costing us nothing.
That is just so nothing.
Wait a second, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You no, they did President Bush use that term.
They're the backbone of the country.
Yes.
Or very similar word.
Boy, I missed that.
But I was on an airplane for a lot of yesterday, and I had a thing to do last night, but I had not I had not heard that.
Well, uh if even if if he did, uh I just I understand, Donna uh this this is this is this is uh it's all politics, and it's not new for him.
He's he's he's uh he's being consistent uh with with his attitudes on illegal immigration, hasn't moved off the dime on this uh since uh it first became a big issue in his administration.
I'm glad you called.
Uh great to talk to you.
We've got one hour left of the fastest three hours of media.
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