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April 12, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:44
April 12, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #3
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And greetings to you, distinguished members of this audience, regular members of this audience, respected members of this audience, and also hello to you, Libs.
You're tuned to the most listened-to radio talk show in America, a program, a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations every day.
And that's no mean feat.
It's great to have you with us.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Just say June Pointer of the Pointer sisters died today, 52 years old, cancer.
Remember that song they did, Jump?
I always thought she was cute.
I thought all those Pointer sisters were cute.
In fact, their brother was an NFL official.
Yeah, I can't remember his first name, but yeah, they're from Oakland, California.
A very, very accomplished family.
Now, hey, look at this little story here.
This is a classic example.
Here is somebody who was hit by the drive-by media, whose career was destroyed.
His name is Michael Brown.
Hurricane ravaged St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans, Louisiana, is considering hiring former FEMA chief Michael Brown to advise its hurricane recovery effort, a move drawing sharp complaints from a state lawmaker.
We want to hire an individual to assist in our recovery efforts who as FEMA director resigned two weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
We were in the middle of the worst natural disaster in our nation's history.
Now, how does this happen?
The drive-by media destroyed this guy.
And we learned later that he was not nearly the culprit that the drive-bys made him out to be.
Now he's being considered as a hurricane advisory or recovery consultant down there.
I guess this is because he later trashed Bush.
So they're going to say, this guy's okay.
We can trust him.
Oprah Winfrey is a rich, rich woman, and she's got no problem with it.
Speaking in Baltimore on Monday at a fundraiser for a community school, a Beth Philo Dahan, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, community school.
Winfrey told the audience, I have lots of things like all these Manolo Blonics.
I have all that, and I think it's great.
I'm not one of these people like, well, we must renounce ourselves.
No, I have a closet full of shoes, and it's a good thing.
Winfrey, 52, reportedly worth more than $1 billion, said she doesn't feel guilty about her wealth.
I was coming back from Africa on one of my trips, she said.
I had taken one of my wealthy friends with me.
She said, don't you just feel guilty?
Don't you just feel terrible?
I said, no, I don't.
I don't know how me being destitute is going to help those people in Africa.
And then I said, when we got home, I'm going to go home to sleep on my Pratisi sheets right now, and I'll feel good about it.
You know, have you ever, any of you guys have Pratezi sheets?
It's P-R-A-T-E-S-I.
And if you marry the right woman, she will find them.
And Brian Johnson, well, he'll get them after the honeymoon.
They're $2,000.
$2,000.
I never heard of Pratisi until a woman told me about the place.
And then I said it was pointed out to me.
It's like it's on Madison Avenue, New York.
One of them is.
I think it's on Madison.
Yes, they're comfortable.
Snirdly with the question of the day.
So, you know, but this is in character for the Oprah, because the Oprah has maintained throughout her career that she has no guilt at success either.
And she actually, you know, this is a good point.
There are a lot of people, you may be one of them, that when good things happen to you, you're, this isn't going to last.
This, this, is, this doesn't feel right.
Well, I, I, I, and you create a self-fulfilling prophecy that you don't deserve it.
You feel guilty or you got it by chance or whatever.
And she's always said, I am not going to feel guilty at my success.
I'm not going to feel like I don't deserve it.
I'm not going to make excuses for it.
And I think it's the same thinking that obviously inspired her to tell these students that, oh, I'm happy I got my Manolo Blanik.
It's interesting how she described her wealth, left out the 10 or 12 houses that she's got and all that.
Well, she's got at least four or five.
They're all over the place.
I guess she was practicing restraint because everybody can maybe in their life get a manolo blonic, but the number of people can have five or ten houses in different locations is that's a little bit bigger challenge.
All right, immigration stack.
This is from the Hill newspaper today: Democrats up their Latino outreach.
A group of former Clinton administration officials, not fully satisfied with the DNC's outreach to the Hispanic community, are participating in a soon-to-be-launched multi-million dollar effort to brand the Democratic Party among Hispanic residents.
While Democratic leaders and party officials say that they will continue what they call their aggressive and long-standing effort to court Hispanics, outside allied groups such as the New Democrat Network, the Service Employees International Union, and people for the liberal way are stepping up operations in hopes of translating the high political energy among Hispanics into Democratic vote.
No, kidding!
What was their first clue there at the Hill?
The efforts resemble the outsourcing of party operations in 2004 to the so-called shadow Democratic Party.
Massive demonstrations shook the nation's political landscape Monday as the pro-immigration crowds took to the streets in dozens of cities.
Democratic strategists call the widespread political mobilization of the Hispanic community an opportunity to win over potential Hispanic voters.
All right.
Now, you know, we've been chronicling this.
The Republicans are making such an idiotic move with that.
They're not recruiting.
They're hoping that the Hispanics see them as really nice people too because of their support for the immigration bill.
And so they'll vote for us because we support immigration.
So I've been thinking about this, ladies and gentlemen.
And I have something to offer.
What am I a little – I'm getting a note here from Dawn that I'm a little off on something.
Is that three, or three, period?
Okay, well, that's okay.
The Protizi sheets are $3,360.
Not $2,000.
Oh, there's obviously been a lot of inflation since the last time I was aware that I bought any.
So, okay, so that's Oprah loves her Pertesi sheets and their 3,000.
And that's for one, folks.
I think it's for one or is it a set?
It's a queen's...
Oh, that's not even king!
It's a queen-size set.
Well, you know that the kings have got to be over four now for a set.
All right.
Anyway, back to immigration.
Thank you, Dawn, for the update on the price of pertizi sheets.
What did you do?
Go to the website to find this or do you have some?
So we're just looking online.
Went to the website.
He's going to have to look up what we're paying her.
Otherwise, I'm just kidding, folks.
Dawn, in fact, I'll buy you a set since I've made fun of you on this.
If you can find a Pratisi store or order them online, whatever.
If the Oprah has them, you should too.
Let's go back to this immigration business.
This is all about, it's not even about immigration, as I've told you.
If you've seen some of the signs that people were carrying, there was a protester in New York, I think, yesterday carrying a sign, waving it around that said, please would somebody give Bush a BJ so we can impeach him?
Yeah, I mean, and you should have seen this person.
This person obviously has a, it was a woman who has obviously lost her kids a number of times in shopping malls and grocery stores and so forth.
Not pleasant, not pleasant sight.
But the bottom line is it's not about immigration.
It is about voters.
And the Democrats are now being open and honest about it.
They're outreach.
They're out there recruiting.
So let's demonstrate this to everybody.
Let's say that we accept everything in the Senate bill.
We accept everything in it, except for one thing.
Illegals, no matter when they become legal, don't get the right to vote.
They still have to pay the fine.
They have to show up, but they can't vote or hold public office.
Their kids can if they're born here, but they can't.
All of the illegals who are here can stay and they can work and they can get jobs.
They can pay taxes.
They can use the services this country has to offer.
But we won't allow them to vote.
Now, you just propose that and watch the Democrat reaction to this.
Just watch the Democrat.
You take the one thing off of the table that the Democrats want and they will have a veritable cow.
But rush, but rush, that will destroy the Republican outreach.
There is no Republican outreach.
In other words, the Democrats are trying to recruit these people and legalize them on the spot just to make them voters.
In fact, there's a move on to make them voters even before they are legal, before they become citizens.
Take it off the table or just suggest taking it off the table.
It's not going to change the way they're going to vote for Republicans.
Just an idea.
I love coming up with ways to illustrate who these people are.
Now, here's another way to smoke out the left.
We do protect our borders.
A lot of you think the borders are not secure.
A lot of you think that we're not doing anything to keep this inflow of humanity from getting into our country.
But we do.
We protect the borders.
We control immigration flows and we do it every day.
And here's how.
If you are a foreigner and wanting to immigrate to this country and are a professional, if you have a specialty occupation, if you are educated, if you are a doctor, an engineer, a computer whiz, even if you're a stem cell researcher, only $65,000 a year of you can come legally to our shores and stay for three years.
With all this claptrap that the left is shouting about out there about building our country and making our country great, why do we only allow 65,000 of them, the professionals, those with specialty occupations, the educated doctors, engineers, computer whizzes?
Why do we only allow 65 of them?
It's like pulling teeth to plea bargain that 65,000 number higher.
Why?
What does this add up to?
Educated?
Keep them out.
Educated enough not to buy the liberal claptrap?
Keep them out.
Does the country want more unskilled, untrained, or does one political party want that?
I'm not making this up.
I've got the numbers.
These are H-1B visas and H-1B non-immigrant visas, and these are the restrictions, and I have them here.
The H-1B visa enables professionals in specialty occupations to make a valuable contribution to the American economy.
A maximum of 65,000 H-1B visas are issued every year.
The H-1B visa is issued for up to three years, but may be extended.
This provides a maximum stay of six years.
The H-1B visa holder can apply for a green card if a company wants to sponsor his or her application.
Eligibility requirements.
The H-1B non-immigrant visa may be issued to applicants seeking temporary work in a specialty occupation which requires the skills of a professional.
Specialty occupations include accounting, computer analysis, programmers, database administrators, web designers, engineers, financial analysts, doctors, nurses, scientists, architects, and lawyers.
The petitions are submitted by employers based on their need for the non-U.S. resident employee.
The applicant may possess a bachelor's degree or requisite experience to make up for the lack of a master's.
We limit.
We control the borders.
65,000 of those people, maximum every year.
Democratic Party, do they actually want the best and the brightest of the world to get in here?
Apparently not.
The Democratic Party wants to bend over backward to get people that don't even have the equivalent of a high school diploma into this country for the sole purpose of making them voters.
And of course, the business community, which wants the cheap labor that you and I end up subsidizing.
But get the best and brightest from the world here, and you have to jump through hoops.
But if you are not among the best and brightest, just take a little hike, start in Mexico, and head north.
And you'll be welcomed with open arms.
It's just amazing.
I got a backlog of phone calls here.
One more thing on immigration.
I'm going to get to the phones.
Republican leaders in the House.
This is an LA Times story, but it's all over the place today.
Republican leaders in the House and the Senate called yesterday for removing a provision in the House passed immigration bill that would make it a felony for a foreign national to be in the United States without a valid visa.
Blame Democrats for the inclusion of the controversial language.
It's absolutely true.
The Republicans have taken a heat for all of this, this provision in this Republican bill that makes these people felons.
Well, what happened was Sensenbrenner, James Sensenbrenner, is being blamed for this when he actually offered an amendment to have the felon provision taken out.
And every Democrat voted against that because they wanted the provision to remain so they could use it to drum up these stupid protests that we're watching.
Pure and simple.
Told you this in a popular morning update weeks ago, have made mention of in his program a couple of times.
The drive-by media never explained the truth of this.
And yet, throughout all of these protests the past couple of weeks, the news has been Republicans want their bill to contain a felony provision.
Anybody here illegally is automatically a felon.
So you have these people out there carrying their signs.
We are not felons.
We are not criminals.
Would somebody give Bush a BJ so he can be impeached?
Blah, Well, the Republicans try to take it out of the bill.
I think the Republicans did put it in.
Who was it that first put it in?
I forget who it was.
But who it doesn't matter.
They tried to get it out of there because they realized the problem that it would cause the Democrats.
Oh, no, no, no.
We're going to make you keep this in there.
So they're going to try to make another effort to get it out of there.
Bryson in Mesa, Arizona.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Megatives, Rush.
You'd have to be speaking on your program.
I'm an ASU student, and I just wanted to voice my opinion on the whole Bob Schefer comment about the good old days of when the media was controlled by just the three networks and how everyone had to tune into their stations.
And we actually, in one of the classes that I was taking, we did a study on a theory that Cass Sunstein had about the internet and how these diverse ideas that are out there with all of these conservative blogs and so forth is taking people away from their common experience.
It was basically the same kind of a theory.
And actually, when the problem behind it is that there's no facts to support it, when we actually studied where people are going on the internet and where they're putting their viewership, it still turns out that the main media sources are getting the vast majority of the market share.
And the fact that they're losing some of the market share to people like yourself and to Fox News, the newcomer on the scene, is not because there's just so many diverse ideas out there.
It's because people are, these big groups like yourself are putting out a better product.
It's capitalism to the fullest extent.
It's that people are still going to the main media sources, and you come up as the main media personality now, you know, in the new media, and then you have Fox News becoming so powerful, not because of these diverse ideas and destroying America in that sense.
It's because the diverse ideas are giving people a choice, and with that choice, they are still going to common places, but where they can receive the best news.
Exactly right.
Just your research doesn't surprise me.
It confirms the operating philosophy as host of this program that I've always had: content, content, content.
Exactly.
If content's what people want, they'll find a way to listen to it if it takes a couple of tin cans and a piece of string.
Well, exactly.
And this whole thought that, you know, people like yourself and all the other new media personalities that are out there, that they're taking away that it's your fault that, you know, New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, CBS, that they're not getting quite as many viewers as they were getting before is preposterous.
They still hold the majority of the market share.
They're still the biggest people out there.
That's why they're considered the mass media.
That's why they're still considered the biggest face of the media front.
It's just they're losing a little bit and they're pandering.
They're just let me let me tell you something, though.
Yeah, I know they still have the vast percentage of the market share as you talk about.
You're looking broadcast versus cable still does in most offerings, but this audience measured on a day like we figure we hit 12 million people a day, 22 million a week, 20, depending on the vagaries of each rating period, at any 15-minute sweep between 4.5 and 5 million people.
That's on a par with the evening newscast.
Now, if you add the three up, yeah, they may have their 30 million, but it used to be double that.
The trend line is that they are losing market share.
They still own the most of it, and they're losing it, but their monopoly is gone.
That's the thing.
And it is content-related.
Nobody has ever said they're going away.
They will never be driven away to extinction.
It's just that the days that they used to operate as a monopoly are over and fee.
That's exactly what we do here, folks.
We make the complex understandable.
Now, if this happened, this would send the drive-bys into an hysteric, hysteria-driven, unhinged moment of I wouldn't want to be around.
Paul Bedard, who writes the Washington Whisperers, if it's Newsweek or U.S. News, I'm not sure which it is.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolton said to be leaning towards selecting an outsider with strong fiscal conservative credentials to take his spot as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
And one of the names on his list is Tom DeLay.
Can you imagine Delay at OMB with the drive-bys?
Pelosi and Reed might have joint heart attacks while going out to denounce the move.
Here's Keith in Chicago.
Keith, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hey, Rush, how are you?
Fine, sir.
Thanks for calling.
Hey, I just wanted to call and comment on the whole Duke situation because, I mean, this is by far not the first time that they've absolutely tried to devastate a university.
If you recall, the University of Colorado football program went through something a lot more serious and a lot more devastating not all that long ago, and we are still feeling the repercussions of it.
I mean, just for an example, what you never saw was the fact that one of the regents for the University of Colorado, her husband, was actually representing the women who were suing the university.
You never heard about the alleged prostitutes' attempt to blackmail the university prior to reporting her claim to have been involved with the students.
And you never heard about the similar DNA evidence that they took from CU football players.
And you never heard about the whole gotcha moment with the head football coach.
And the list goes on and on and on.
I mean, it's just completely and totally disgusting.
Well, now, let's reset this stage.
Let me tell you what I remember of this story.
What I remember of this story is that the university, because the football program generates so much money, tried to do everything they could to sweep this away.
In fact, the university president, whose name I forget, a woman, and she's no longer Betsy Hoffman.
That's right, Elizabeth Hoffman.
She actually testified that the C-word could be used as a term of endearment, that it didn't necessarily mean something insulting.
And I'm sitting here, I'm stunned to hear this.
I'm thinking, what are the feminazis going to think of this?
But so important was it to defend that program because it generates so much money.
You go to Duke.
I mean, La Crosse doesn't generate any money.
La Crosse is just who pays to watch it?
I mean, some people obviously do, but compared to the football program, La Crosse isn't going to generate anything or the Duke basketball program.
So my basic understanding of it was, or impression was that the University of Colorado did everything it could to save the people involved and save that program from disrepute.
They did the last thing they did was jump on a coach, did not get fired until a year or two later, right?
Yeah, that's correct.
But that was more the result of wins and losses in the football program.
That's what they said, but didn't he have more wins and losses the year he got fired than the previous year?
Yeah, he did.
But, you know, just in return, in regards to the comment that you made, I mean, nobody's saying that there wasn't some absolute stupidity in terms of how the university defended itself, but I would almost argue, well, actually, I would argue that it actually didn't defend itself.
It didn't have the public relations.
It didn't do a good job of getting the messages out.
I mean, if you or anybody else were to do any research, you'd find out there were nine accusations, none of which were true.
And you certainly didn't hear about any of the things that would all of a sudden make you think, well, you know, maybe these students aren't guilty.
Wait, a second.
You have just told me something I didn't know.
What's that?
I assumed that there was the female player that got the most credibility was a kicker, right?
Well, that was one of them.
And the thing about that was the gotcha moment.
Yeah, but I've been under the impression all along that it happened and the university admitted that it happened and it never.
So it was a hoax?
It didn't happen?
Or she was never able to prove it that it happened?
Well, she certainly couldn't prove it.
She never went to anybody in any positions of authority at any point until all these allegations came out.
And it wasn't, in fact, that she was even linked to it until some reporter in the press asked Coach Barnett, why would a bunch of young, immature, manly, testosterone-filled, you know, you name it, football players treat her, you know, tease her, throw footballs at her, and blah, blah, blah.
And all you heard was Coach Barnett's response.
And then when the media would try to put that response in context, they would link it to, did she deserve to be raped, which he absolutely was not saying.
She was not saying.
She never said she was raped.
She was saying that he was not, excuse me, I'm a little bit nervous being on your program, but he was never, meaning Coach Barnett, was never saying that she deserved to be raped because she was a bad kicker.
All he was doing was answering a question from the media, and the media asked him, why would a bunch of young, immature football players throw footballs at her and tease her and call her name?
So his response was, she was a bad kicker, didn't deserve to be on the team, and so on and so forth, i.e., she did not earn their respect.
The media played it as though he was saying that she deserved to be raped because she was football, or because she was a bad kicker.
I remember that.
But I really, I did not know this whole thing didn't happen.
I didn't know the well, then why all these people quit?
Why did Betsy Hoffman flee the scene?
What was the point in getting rid of Barnett?
I know they said it was wins and losses and so forth.
But you know, the story was going around and it spawned others.
Apparently the university's recruits would be brought in and girls would be provided for them and so forth.
And we heard that a couple of other universities.
I forget which ones, but I've always been under the impression that it did happen out there.
You're telling me it didn't?
There's not a single allegation that was proven to be true.
And in terms of Betsy Hoffman.
Okay, but has it been established that it was a hoax, or there are still people think it happened, it's just not proved.
Well, I mean, in my mind, it didn't happen because I have yet to see anything.
I suppose that there's probably folks out there that think that, oh, sure, it still happened because they didn't prove that they didn't do it.
But that's like saying you didn't prove that you beat your dog last night.
I mean, how do you prove that?
Naomi Wolf, well-known feminazi, was on television the other day about this Duke case.
And she said, it is up to them to prove their innocence.
Well, I mean, that's the thing.
I said, wait a minute, where does it say that in the Constitution?
Yeah, it's silly.
It's proven a negative.
You can't do it.
So the parallel you're drawing to the Duke case is that it didn't happen.
It's not provable there.
And the same thing so far in Durham.
Yeah, I would say that the parallel is that what's happening is that you have a lot of unsubstantiated, at least so far anyway, accusations and whatnot, and they're just assuming these students are true.
And then as soon as there's some evidence to the contrary, at least in the Duke case, it's being made public.
In the CU case, it was never made public.
I mean, I'm just a die-hard CU fan, so I did a lot of digging to find out what exactly was going on out there.
And you'd have to really, really, really dig to find any evidence or any statements to the contrary.
You know, I mean, you watch, it's kind of like the Rodney King thing in Coach Barnett's gotcha moment.
I mean, you see the response, but you have no idea what led up to it.
And unless you are more than a casual observer, you're probably not going to dig, and you're going to assume that everybody's guilty.
Right.
And of course, the drive-by media comes in with their template.
You've got black-on-white accused crime, a white-on-black accused crime.
Guilty.
Doesn't matter guilty, innocent.
We've got a great story.
We got a clash of cultures, clash of races.
We're going to have Jesse Jackson Al Sharpton here to come and go.
Oh, this is fun.
And that's the way they look at it.
The nature of the evidence takes a back seat.
Keith, I appreciate the call very much.
Jeff, in Valley Forge, you're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hey, Rush.
In regards to Iran, the history of the anti-war movement has been no pressure on the communists, no pressure on Saddam Hussein, no pressure on barely any aggressor, and then a lot of pressure on America.
And given that track record, why should we expect them not to put pressure on Bush and no pressure on Iran?
A good point, a good reminder of what the anti-war movement is.
It's an anti-America movement.
And you're absolutely right.
There was never any protest of the Soviet Union.
There were excuses made for them.
Never any protest against Saddam.
I mean, look at the left sideling up to Hugo Chavez now because he's enemy number one of America down to Latin America.
Well, depending on if he's edged out Castro for that, but there's another guy.
They sidle up to Fidel Castro, a mass murderer, because he got a great health care system.
I don't see any of them sending their kids down there to be treated, but yet he's got the greatest health care system in the world.
And how many coffee grinders did he give away there?
Bean growl.
Whatever.
He gave everybody some rice cookers.
He passed out a bunch of rice cookers to not everybody, couldn't afford to do that.
And the reason he did it is because too many entrepreneurs were setting up shop, and he didn't want that to happen.
So he wanted everybody to have their own, or as many as possible, so that there couldn't be any entrepreneurs.
Yeah, the left sidles up to these guys.
They love these guys.
A bunch of self-loathing anti-Americans.
And there always have been a group of them in this country.
And of course, the drive-by media loves them.
Drive-by media loves it.
Except when there's a Democrat in the White House.
They couldn't cover up LBJ forever, and that finally did him in.
But they gave it their best shot.
Ted in Ann Arbor, Michigan, you're next on the Rush Lindbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, Rush.
How's it going?
Thank you, sir.
I wanted to ask you, I heard your comment earlier, and I wanted to ask you, I know you talk about being a constitutionalist, you know, the founding fathers of principles they believed in.
Your last comment about the removed from the Senate bill, the right for them to vote, isn't that literally taxation with no representation?
Yes.
So you're for, so in this case, you're going against the Constitution.
No, no, I was talking about a political move.
I know it'll never happen.
I just love to have it proposed because I want people to understand what the Democrats look at this immigration chance as.
It's not about immigration.
When Ted Kennedy goes out and talks about these are the future, the backbone of America, you made this country.
You will make our future.
It's all BS.
He just wants them, and the Democrats want them as voters, whether they're legal or not.
And so take the, you know, okay, we'll let you have everything else in the bill.
Whatever is in this bill that you like, you can have it.
Except they can't vote.
And just watch the reaction.
It'll never happen.
But it would just be a way to illustrate what's really important to them so that people can figure this out.
Because everybody that's not paying close attention thinks this is really about immigration on the left.
And it's not.
And it's not about security, and they couldn't care less about that.
They can't be trusted in that regard either.
So it was just be a demonstration.
I'm fully aware it wouldn't happen.
We'll be back after this.
And we are back with time dwindling down.
This is a story from the Associated Press.
Some big media and entertainment companies hope to keep under wraps the perks and income of their stars and celebrities, challenging a Securities and Exchange Commission proposal that's being called the Katie Couric Clause.
The SEC has proposed a rule in January as part of an initiative to require companies to disclose far more details about their executives' pay packages and perks.
The biggest changes since 92 and rules governing disclosure of executive compensation are aimed at addressing a source of shareholder wrath.
The regulation in question would require a company to disclose the pay details of as many as three non-executive employees whose individual compensation exceeds that of any of its top five executives.
TV personalities, professional athletes, and other celebs who are employees of public companies could be affected.
So let's see if I understand.
Of course, they're outraged at this.
Why?
Wait, we can't do that.
They can't force us to do this.
Let me see if I understand it.
These giant drive-by media companies, they want every bit of information they can get from the bigs.
They want big tobacco, big oil, big coke, big lumber.
But when it comes to their little fiefdoms, they don't want to disclose.
Is that right?
I think I've got it right, folks.
Not hard to understand these people.
Susan Estrich has just put out a column.
It's on Newsmax: Democrat Contract with America.
Let me just get to where she summarizes the contract.
All the Democrats need to do now is nationalize the election, raise the money, and make their own Compact for a Better America.
What would be the elements?
Here are a few suggestions worthy of some testing.
Testing?
Testing.
Just want to, Susan, tell us what you believe and just do it.
Test things?
Yeah, go poll them.
Focus group them.
See how they work.
The resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld at the top of her list.
Yeah, that's going to bring people out to the polls for you.
A comprehensive, understandable prescription drug program for the elderly.
Speaking of which, Susan, Washington Post has a story today.
Here's the money quote: Millions of seasoned citizens have not signed up for and do not know much about the Medicare new prescription drug benefit.
But among those who have enrolled, three-quarters said the paperwork was easy to complete.
Nearly two-thirds said the program saved them money.
This is from the latest Washington Post ABC poll.
Now, you remember all those stories about how bad the Medicare drug benefit would be.
Most of those who signed up for the plan didn't have a problem, and they're saving money.
Who knew the private sector could do something right?
Another drive-by media case, scaring everybody, making them think the plan is horrible, too complicated, can't figure it out.
The people that have tried found it easy, and they are saving money, and they like it.
So take that one off a list.
Don't be careful where you test that one, Susan.
Don't test that one on people who are actually using the program.
Roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers as a first step to dealing with the record Republican budget deficits.
An end to the special interest earmarks that pay off lobbyists, blah, blah, blah, blah.
No child left behind leaves too many children behind, putting kids ahead of slogans.
The problem with that plan is it's more appropriately titled a No Childs Behind Left Alone program in schools these days.
Support for conservation and alternative energy sources to reduce our expensive and dangerous dependence on foreign oil while Castro and Mexico drill in the Gulf of Mexico for oil.
That's just the start.
She says, get the pollsters and wordsmiths to work.
That's what the Republicans did.
They tested the concepts down to the words.
Democrats can do the same thing.
Forget about abortion and gay rights for the time being and run on what everyone agrees on.
Maybe it's a compact.
Maybe it's a deal.
Maybe it's better.
Maybe it's new.
The numbers are there.
All Democrats need are the words now.
Still haven't changed it.
By the way, some of you are upset at my proposal to eliminate the vote for illegals.
I'll modify it for you.
My original proposal was they never get to vote even after they become citizens, but I'll modify it.
No vote while illegal.
They cannot vote until they become citizens.
Put that in there and you watch the Democrats squeal like a bunch of stuck pigs.
You can have everything else in that bill, but you can't let them vote.
They will not be allowed to vote until they become citizens.
And we'll flush them out.
Quick timeout.
We'll be right back.
Stay with us.
As I mentioned earlier, there was a prayer vigil on the steps of the Duke University Chapel today promoting healing at the university and in Durham in the wake of the rape allegations that have rocked the city of Durham.
About 40 people.
40.
And it made big news.
40 people linked hands.
And they bowed heads during the brief event, which is recorded and observed by a gaggle of media that outnumbered the participants.
There were more drive-by media types at the prayer vigil than there were prayer vigilers.
See you tomorrow, folks.
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