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April 13, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:37
April 13, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2
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Hi, how are you?
Greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
Great to have you with us, the award-winning, thrill-packed, ever exciting, increasingly popular, growing by leaps and bounds.
Dominant Excellence and Broadcasting Network of the Rush Limbaugh program, our phone number, if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
Let me tell you why I brought up this Massawi business, because there's a larger lesson to learn here, and it is what I have been focused on.
It is at his sentencing that the issue of whether he can be put to death for not telling us what he knew came up.
That's what some people are arguing.
The real issue is whether he is responsible for the outcome of his conspiracy.
The government is arguing to bolster their case that if he'd spoken up, if he'd have just told us, that this could have been stopped.
Now, on the face of it, cool.
But what does this say about our government back then?
Now, this is August of 2001 when all this is happening.
We were tracked this guy down.
We found he was going to flight school, didn't care about learning to take a plane off the ground or land one.
All he wanted to learn was learn how to fly one.
Well, that caused red flags.
The real issue to me is we had this guy dead to rights.
We had his computer, but we couldn't search his computer.
The probable cause uh uh requirement was not met.
You see, the libs demand that we follow the FISA court.
We followed the FISA court in this case, and look what happened.
And before you start blaming Bush and all this, these are Clinton-era Justice Department rules.
We're back to this wall that Jamie Garellick built.
And it was because of that wall we couldn't share data from one agency such as the FBI to another agency, the CIA, because the Clintons were prosecuting all these sorts of things in court, grand jury testimony.
That by law is secret.
Nobody can know what it is, unless you're reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle.
It's a sports grand jury in the blab somewhere.
But that's not supposed to happen.
We had the guy dead to rights.
We had his computer.
We have since looked at the computer.
He had the names of all the other hijackers.
He had the name of the paymaster.
He had the email address and the phone number of the paymaster.
He was part of it.
The only thing I don't think that was on his computer was the date.
I'm not sure, I don't think he knew what the date was, but he knew the targets.
And it was right at our fingertips, but we couldn't find it.
We couldn't legally go there because of the wall.
The Justice Department under Clinton, before you say what Russia is 2001.
This is Bush.
Yeah, this is Bush's sixth eighth month in office after this contentious recount.
Um they still haven't got all of his cabinet members confirmed by them.
They're still arguing over Ashcroft.
There's the place of a mess.
It's the same old thing.
Whenever a Democrat ends up in the White House, a Republican has to be elected at some point to clean the mess up.
And so Bush was cleaning the mess up after 9-11.
The Patriot Act was uh was was established, it was voted into law and signed.
The Patriot Act got rid of the wall.
The NSA Intercept program got rid of the bureaucratic and untimely process that prevented us from acting quickly with Massaui.
And now Bush is attacked for fixing the problem.
Bush, and this is the larger issue here with this whole Massawi episode.
The idea that our government, this is embarrassing to me.
That our government is going to say, well, he didn't tell us.
Name for me one conspirator who comes forward before the act and says, hey, guess what's gonna happen?
It might happen if we find out who they are and find ways to pressure them and so forth.
And I'm sure it happens in rare cases, but to make it almost an act of the law and policy.
Well, he didn't tell us.
Well, what are you doing?
Well, you're sitting there, your hands are tied because you've got Clinton-era Justice Department rules that don't let you look at the guy's computer because the probable causing wasn't what and here's the probable cause requirement wasn't met.
Colleen Rowley, the famed whistleblower from Minneapolis, a Time magazine uh woman of the year, I think she was, or at least she ended up on the cover.
She said, I got this computer, I want to find out what's on it.
You can't.
The FBI Back in Washington said, you can't.
What's the crime?
You've got a guy with a computer taking flying lessons.
Where's the crime?
Well, but what he's doing in these flying lessons, we've got, plus with the the thing from Phoenix.
We had a memo from Phoenix about things were going on out there from another FBI office.
But none of these could be used.
None of these could be used.
We had terrorist acts all during the 90s, starting in 93 with the World Trade Center.
And we had the the uh embassy bombings in Africa.
We had a bunch of acts of terrorism against the United States.
The Clinton administration was doing diddly squat about it.
Clinton administration was offered uh bin Laden two or three times by Sudan.
I don't think we have a reason to hold the guy.
I don't want to deal with this.
I don't want to deal with I want to make people think I'm dealing with this, but I don't want to deal with it because I keep my approval numbers up there at 65% for my legacy.
Okay, so we hit a get hit on 9-11.
We find out later that we had the guy in custody who knew exactly what was going to happen, just didn't know when couldn't do anything about it because he wouldn't tell us.
Now, how embarrassing is that.
In other words, the policy of our government was in order to prevent acts like this, the people that are going to do it have to tell us in advance.
And play fair.
Well, I'm sorry.
In the uh in the world of crime and terrorism, it simply uh it doesn't, it doesn't work that way.
Now, after it happens, Bush goes in, okay.
We gotta we gotta get rid of this stupid wall, and we're gonna do the Patriot Act.
We're gonna be able to find these kind of things out.
Now that we've had happened what happened, 9 11, and the Democrats have been, they got on board the Patriot Act at first, you know, everybody was rah-rah.
But for the past three years, they've been trying to destroy Bush for fixing the problem.
The NSA intelligence program, foreign surveillance, they're trying to portray it as domestic spying.
These people literally, folks, cannot be trusted.
Uh and I if if a Democrat next time a Democrat's elected, it's gonna happen.
Next time a Democrat's elected, the the military is gonna go to hell.
Uh, we're gonna find ourselves in all kinds of problems around the world, and a Republican's gonna go in there and have to fix it, and the Democrats are gonna try to destroy him for fixing it.
Uh, and the cycle just ends up being repeated until enough of the American people, and this is happening, are educated and informed and understand exactly what this cycle is.
And when enough of them learn exactly who the Democratic Party is, what the Democratic Party is, who's a member, and who they own their allegiance to, uh, then their their uh permanent minority status will be achieved, but that's that's gonna take some time.
But I still think it can happen.
I think we're in the process of making it happen.
Yes, I'm optimistic, I'm always optimistic.
You would be too if you were me.
I mean, I'm even optimistic in the face of idiocy like this.
This is from live science using yeah, the Conyer stuff, I'll do it in the next segment.
I promise.
Sturdley's in there chomping at the bit to hear the Conyer stuff.
Using several models that project habitat changes, migration capabilities of various species and related extinctions in 25 hotspots.
Scientists predicted a quarter of the world's plant and vertebrate animal species will face extinction by 2050.
Biodiversity, hot spots, some of the richest and most threatened biological pools on earth.
A report detailing all this was released today.
In the most dramatic of the scenarios for which carbon dioxide levels grow to double that of today's levels, the models forecasted a potential loss of 56,000 plant species, 3700 vertebrate species in these hotspots.
This is um well, I guess this uh this was done at the University of of Toronto.
Uh so we got a quarter of the species gone by 2050.
It's all going to be due to global warming.
Um, how many kittens are gonna die?
How many bunnies?
How many what this is just.
These people, I tell you, it is just stunning to what to watch.
Pat Michaels had a little speech or article the other day, and he did a study of media reporting a global warming.
For every one story that discounts the conventional wisdom.
There are 15 who promote it.
So the ratio's 15.
We're doomed stories to one.
Hey, wait a minute.
There may be some problems with this.
15 to one ratio.
It's a journalism crusade.
It's a drive-by media crusade to get you thinking you are destroying the planet.
Quick timeout, folks.
The John Conyers tapes coming up.
Now you see where the families of the lacrosse players at Duke University have brought in Uncle Bob.
Uh, Uncle Bob helped uh to defend uh President Clinton against charges of sexual harassment by Paula Jones.
By the way, on this program, we don't say harassment, as the uh journalistic style book now requires.
We say harassment because that's the way the word was originally intended to be pronounced.
Uh well, Uncle Bob's been he's been it it's interesting, he's been hired by the families to help manage the distorted media image.
He's not I don't yet know that he's gonna be, I don't know if they can afford him as uh uh billable hour lawyer.
I don't know.
I uh but but it clearly he may be hired as a defense lawyer when the if if charges are brought, but right now uh he's been hired to help manage the distorted media image that has developed around the case.
There are people think the case is beginning to unravel.
Uh you know.
Uh well, there's some people would think that the hiring Uncle Bob makes him look guilty because we all know Clinton was guilty.
Uh so uh yeah, it's a good point.
Let me get on this Conyers business, because if I don't, I'm gonna keep pushing it back, and people are gonna say that I'm tricking them, I'm teasing them when I'm not.
Two former staff members, John Conyers, D. Michigan, said the uh longtime Detroit Congressman made them babysit his children, run errands, and work on political campaigns while they were on his congressional payroll.
CNN has an investigative unit, and they went after this.
We first heard about this story and told you about it two months ago because you uh, as a regular uh tuner inner, are on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
So the investigative correspondent is Drew Griffin, did a story on Conyers, the second most senior member of Congress, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
Here is uh former legal advisor Sidney Rooks talking about her experience as Conyers babysitter.
Several times he just brought them into my office and said, I'll be back later.
Later could be a few minutes, later could be hours, later could be frantically calling around trying to find him because it was now eight or nine o'clock or later in the evening and not knowing what to do with the children.
It was calm and it was ubiquitous, and it wasn't just me.
I wasn't the only person who got stuck with the kids for the day.
I wasn't the only person who had to take the boys to the bathroom, change a diaper or anything like that.
We would also take them to doctor's appointments, uh, other things too.
If they had to go, they had to go.
Somebody had to take them.
And there was no reimbursement for gasoline or anything like that.
Did you feel like a servant?
Like a house servant?
Many times, I frankly did, yes.
Yes, yeah.
Well, I'm not surprised.
Uh and then the correspondent spoke to um uh former deputy chief of staff for Conyers' name is uh Dinah Marr.
Uh and she said this about babysitting his kids.
He handed me the keys to his car and his house.
And said, take care of my child, Carl, and everything.
Make sure, in other words, I had to stay at the house and take care of him.
And that was for several weeks.
Now, this is not supposed to happen.
This is and these they they filed ethics complaints, these two women have against uh Conyers.
Now, this is really gutsy for CNN, and I don't know what's happening over there.
Um, but their investigative correspondent caught up with Conyers on Capitol Hill to ask him about this, said to him, Congressman Conyers, I'm Drew Griffin with CNN.
Hi Drew.
I've been trying to meet you for several weeks now to discuss these allegations by your former staff members.
Oh, ethics violations.
Just a minute, sir.
I've I've been told not to discuss them because we haven't examined him and I have an attorney.
Well, can I just ask you if you have required your staff members to babysit your children?
No, no, look.
Is that not you?
May I say I told you I could not discuss it.
I just like a yes or no question.
It's uh have you required your your staff to babysit your children and at one point.
Six weeks.
Oh, come on.
Now, you can see the report is a little timid doing this.
It would not, it still wasn't the same as if it had been a Republican.
Uh but it still went after him.
Still went after still went after Conyers.
Um the House Ethics Committee does have the power to vote on starting an ethics investigation against members of Congress.
in the case of Conyers, it hasn't yet happened.
CNN made uh several attempts recently to reach Conyers to answer these allegations.
Last week he declined to answer questions about duties assigned to the uh staff.
CNN also called his lawyer, Stanley Brand.
Uh their calls were were not returned.
Uh the employees say that they they use congressional staff time to work on local elections in Michigan, including a campaign for Conyers' wife Monica, who is the Detroit City Council's president pro tem.
Uh so I, you know, this is uh interesting in that now that it's out there, uh it makes it even tougher for the Democrats to move forward with their culture of corruption.
Uh so I wonder what I saw this on their on their webpage at CNN, I said, this is two months old.
But at least they followed it up.
Nobody else, other than where it first appeared in the Hill, uh Capitol Hill newspaper and and and this program did it get discussed nationally, I mean there might have been others that did, but in terms of the drive-by media.
This is the first.
By the way, uh in uh the case of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, citizens for responsibility and ethics in Washington released an ethics complaint yesterday against Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, charging that he played a role in a conspiracy and bribery scheme and misused Federal resources in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, is one of a few congressional Democrats who've come under fire lately from uh misconduct charges.
Story also mentions Conyers and his um his uh staff being treated like uh personal gophers.
Federal investigators looking into the finances of uh Democrat Congressman Alan Mollihan, West Virginia.
Uh story said that he helped steer 178 million dollars in federal money to nonprofit groups, and his net his uh his net worth is now up to eleven point four million dollars on a salary of around one sixty-five.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, is the subject of an ongoing uh investigation of which his former aide Brett Pfeffer pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official and aiding and abetting such bribery.
Uh and it also talks about the things that we learned at Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana commandeering uh National Guard troops and vehicles to go to his house to uh remove uh a microwave-sized box uh and and other items while uh there were still citizens needing to be literally saved.
The first vehicle that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana commandeered, got stuck in the mud outside his home, they had to bring in another one to get him out and his box, uh whatever uh was in it.
And then we learned later that uh uh there was cash.
Uh he had stored the FBI uh uh alleges that he had stored cash for his bribery scheme in in a freezer.
Which you've heard the term cold hard cash.
I mean, it makes a perfect place to uh hide your cash.
Here's Carl in Munster, Indiana.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hi, Rush.
Great to be able to talk with you.
Thank you.
That's my point.
Um I I think that the Iraq war is eclipsing the overall good economic news, by the way, sustained good economic news.
We've had good overall job creation numbers, relatively low unemployment.
But because the Iraq war's eclipsing the news, I think that the Republicans are hugely vulnerable and dis disgruntled Republicans will uh stay away from the two thousand six or two thousand eight elections and uh give power back to the Democrats.
And my obviously the main concern in all of that is that once the Dems reassume power, forget about uh sustaining tax cuts, don't be sunset, reduced, um and and the big thing potentially even more expensive, bigger uh comprehensive pre-health plans that uh have costs that make the current drug plan look cheap.
Yes, but see if you can figure this out, uh a lot of other people can, and it will be enough to get them to the polls.
There's a s there's a stark enough difference, even with these incompetent Republicans, uh uh between them and the Democrats to incite enough fear in the Republican base.
You wait, wait till we get closer to the election.
I don't don't don't go negative on me, don't go pessimistic on me now.
Uh the Tax cuts may be made permanent.
Uh uh national security, all these things are going to come to the forefront.
And while there may be some upset, I'll give you a little economic statistic.
I don't expect it to mollify anybody.
I found this out today.
Do you know with all of this spending, with all this spending that we're so upset about that the uh uh federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product is lower today than it was in 1984.
When Ronald Reagan won a 49 state landslide over Walter F. Mondo.
It's uh percentage of uh the of GDP federal spending is less than it was uh in 1984.
It just means the economy is growing like gado out there.
We will continue in mere moments.
Now, now remember out there uh my friends, uh Monday is tax day.
Please pay your taxes, 12 million illegal aliens are depending on you.
Try this.
U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy was hit in the face with a hammer when an entrepreneur demonstrating shock absorption accidentally set the hammer's head flying at Kennedy's mouth.
Patrick Kennedy received six stitches in his bottom lip after the incident yesterday during an economic development meeting, said his spokeswoman.
The entrepreneur, Matt Creasel of Wisconsin, produces a shock absorbing gel used as sports shoe inserts, tennis rackets, and horse saddles.
He was hitting some gel with a hammer to demonstrate how it reduces vibration when a hammer's head flew off.
Congressman's a class act.
He didn't make a fuss, said Michael McMahon, the executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation who attended the meeting.
Kennedy was bleeding, so staff took him to Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket, where he got the stitches.
Rep Kennedy hit in mouth by hammer.
Well, that's the headline.
I mean it.
Um and then again this.
A Boulder woman, Boulder, Colorado woman, uh, was out of jail uh yesterday after being locked up over the weekend for installing a new garage door.
The Boulder Daily Camera reported in its Thursday editions that Megan Forbes, I've always loved that name, Megan, always have, was arrested and taken to jail on Sunday for failing to show up on a court summons that she received for replacing her original garage door with a new one.
The problem was that Forbes' home is in the history Mapleton Hill area, the historical Mapleton Hill area, and replacing the original garage door at her 106-year-old home is uh required a landmark alteration certificate from the city, and she didn't get one.
She was getting ready for church on Sunday when a Boulder police officer knocked on her door, arrested her, and took her to jail.
Now, how many illegal aliens do you think crossed the border during this arrest?
How many illegal aliens crossed the border and moved into the southern states, uh border states of the United States, while Megan Forbes was being shackled and handcuffed, arrested and taken to the local jail for not getting a landmark alteration certificate from the city of Boulder for her new garage door.
You remember Walter Mondo, we've spoken of this earlier this year.
Mondo 1984, a Democratic National Convention promised in his acceptance speech to raise everybody's taxes.
Well, it's it's happened here again.
Um Phil Angeletis, who uh, well, I know of, I think I've met him a couple of times, Sacramento.
He's uh he's uh uh running for office out in uh in California.
Uh and he's urging Democrats to vote for him over his opponent Steve Westling.
He's running for governor in the Democratic primaries, urging Democrats to vote for him over his opponent Steve Wesley because he will raise their taxes higher than the other Democrat.
Republicans can only hope that Angelitas wins.
If he does, Republicans can reprise, reprise some of Westley's rebuttals.
Angelitas has never seen a tax hike he didn't like, Wesley said, adding that only in California would you have a candidate is going out that far to endorse taxes.
Now, this generally happens when Democrats think that they're on the verge of winning.
This is the this is the second time where I've actually known a Democrat to actually promise what they're going to do.
Raise taxes.
And it didn't help Mondel, and it uh it probably I don't know what in California anymore.
That state's lost.
I I don't know.
I don't know what what what'll happen to Angelina's Angelina's very, very, very wealthy man, by the way.
Should uh point out to you.
Um see the story in the Daily Mail in the UK, right up my alley, happiness is working for yourself.
Now, you people have heard me preach this sermon for 17, 16 years on this program.
The job may be long on hours and it may be short on pay at first, but working for yourself will make you much happier than those employed by others, according to research.
People who run their own businesses have such flexibility and independence that they enjoy far greater job satisfaction, according to the claims experts.
You don't need an expert.
You just need the people who do the job.
They're the experts, not the analysts for crying out loud.
Life is sweeter for those working for themselves, according to the survey.
The self-employed work longer hours for lower wages than their wage slave counterparts.
Scientists found entrepreneurs put up with longer hours because they were worried about how much money they would have in the future.
And they have to meet payroll, by the way.
The report by academics at the University of Durham also discovered numbers of female entrepreneurs have not increased since the 1990s.
Professor Simon Parker said young businessmen and women were more likely to take risks in new markets than uh uh established entrepreneurs uh were self-employed workers were still successful in their sixties, were less likely to retire.
We found that uh greater or potentially greater earnings around retirement age decreases the probability of retirement of the self-employed.
Well, this only makes common sense.
This is uh Andrew Philadelphia.
Great to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Rush.
Yes, sir.
Hey, it's great to finally talk to you.
Thank you, sir.
Waiting a while.
I think I shocked you by your are you ready?
You want me to go to somebody else's?
Yeah, yeah, I'm ready.
Okay.
I'm ready.
Um I I was talking to your call screener about how uh the situation in Iran is really fueled by rhetoric.
Uh, because I think the revolution is dying.
You think the Iranian revolution?
You think the what the Islamic resolution revolution in Iran is dying?
Yes.
Uh on what basis do you think this?
Well, I I think the whole reason for nuclear development is to fuel American rhetoric in return to secure the cleric's position in Iran.
Well, now it's interesting you say that because there are some people who have advanced this theory, uh, but it's not based on the Islamic revolution failing, it is on their economy going south.
Uh the economy in Iran is is good, they're devoting so many resources to uh uh Mahmood's fantasy here of a becoming member of a nuclear club that the Iranian economy which does not feature freedom and it does not feature entrepreneurism, and it does it's a typical closed state.
It's a typical tyrannical dictatorship run by the mullahs.
Uh and and Mahmood, Mahmood is a f is is actually, if you want to know the truth about Mahmoud, Mahmood is just the face of the government.
I mean, he was quote unquote elected after uh Khamenei informed the public what would happen to them if they didn't elect him.
Uh and so he is out there rattling cages and rattling sabers.
Uh but I don't think the Islamic resolution revolution is fading away at all.
That sounds like Zabignyv Bjazinski.
I think they've got an economic problem.
Now, there is, and there has been for a while.
There are people in this country very frustrated we're not doing more to promote it.
There is a sizable percentage of the Iranian population which wants nothing to do with the Iranian government as it is, but they're suppressed.
And they're they're they're tyrannized.
They're not being uh uh promoted uh that we know of uh with the with typical, you know, way like the radio free Europe, the voice of America, Radio Marty, these these kinds of things.
Uh but it's I mean it's no all sweetness and light, and there's no question that the the uh Iranian saber rattling on nukes uh is is designed to uh distract their own population and this big ceremony they had announcing their their enrichment of uranium three and a half that was clearly designed to instill national pride because they basically say okay look people of Iran we know we live in the stone age here but look we're coming out of the caves because we just enriched uranium it's supposed to make the Iranian population feel proud that they are now part
of the uh the world's power base of course and that there's no question this is going on but at the same time the Iranians have been terror masters for years and this Mahmud guy uh is is genuinely unstable.
We can I don't know that we can afford given recent history to sit back and assume that they're imploding and that uh we just sit around and let them implode we can maybe help to bring about such an implosion is going to involve Russia as as uh and perhaps China as uh as I mentioned earlier.
David in Fort Worth, I'm glad to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
Major 50,000 watt blowtorch dittoes from the big BAP here in great to have you with us forward to your visit to our fair community got my tickets and uh ready to see you at the Nokia.
Yeah be out there on uh on on May the eleventh.
That is didn't bother announcing it on this program because I knew it would sell out in two minutes once BAP announced it.
Well, they offered tickets to the BAB Listeners Club first, and I'll be surprised if there's an empty seat within miles of that place.
There won't be.
There never is.
Raj, my comment was, you know, with this illegal immigration and these people being so hardworking and so underpaid, I think the next step for the Dems is going to be a mandatory minimum wage for illegal alien workers.
What are your thoughts on that?
How are we going to enforce it?
How are we going to enforce that?
this because the businesses today that hire them are already breaking the law but we don't track them down.
Well I figure it'll be a badge of honor now that the you show up you you announce yourself as an illegal and you'll you'll get a raise for crying out loud.
The problem is that's never going to happen.
The reason it isn't going to happen because the reason that businesses hire them is because they get them at under minimum wage.
And if the demo for Democrats yeah that's what the that's what the attraction is it's simply it's it's and it's look it's not entirely these businesses' fault.
I you have to understand uh it it's it's a I don't know what percentage 50-50 deal here.
True you have businesses every business wants to keep its cost down and its profit margin up.
That's that's that's that's capitalism.
It's not a sin.
Uh and it all works out because there's competition for jobs the more educated you are and the more talented you are the the the the greater bargaining power you're gonna have the less education the less preparation the less skill and talent you're up creek.
And that's i there are certain businesses that don't need highly skilled they need they need physically dominated labor force and uh and and so they they love the the fact that they can get these people at at uh bargain basement uh wages with no benefits by the way that all the rest of us end up subsidizing.
But on the one thing here, and I'm not defending them on the basis of breaking the law, but if there are so many regulations that the federal bureaucracy has posed imposed on American businesses that this is one of the natural release valves when it's made available to you as a as a business you might take the risk if the cost of doing business in meeting all of the OSHA and all of the FEMA and oh whatever I take your acronym uh
the affirmative action requirements all of this bureaucratic gunk after a while people throw up their hands say screw this and you go to the point of least resistance and in this case it happens to be the illegals.
So bottom line is you you uh you pass this minimum wage increase for illegals and the business community that hires them is going to say well screw this and they're not gonna hire them.
And then where are they?
That's there this That's that sort of uncovers one of the dark little secrets here.
By the way, we're getting stories of all these illegals being fired for leaving work and attending the rally.
We're fifteen of them fired in Detroit on Tuesday for going to a rally.
And in Monroe, Washington, a Monroe-based home painting contractor fired more than a quarter of its employees, all of them Latino, a day after the painters left work two hours early to attend Monday's immigration rally in downtown Seattle.
A company, Latala Enterprises, said the fired workers agree the workers told the foreman of their desire to attend the rally.
The two sides said the workers left early and their departure did not delay the schedule of a painting job in a subdivision.
But the two sides don't agree on facts critical to determining whether what the workers did amounted to insubordination and abandoning their jobs, as the company claimed in dismissing them.
The company also said 17 were fired.
The union said 19.
The workers' union filed a grievance uh yesterday after the company refused to reinstate them.
That means the workers won't get their jobs back for several weeks, if ever.
Uh so.
And of course, you knew this was going to happen.
I predicted that this, in fact, this was happening when I said it was happening.
Migrants flock across U.S. border, just like in 1986 when the talk then was of amnesty at a shelter of overflowing migrants in Nogales, Mexico.
Francisco Ramirez nursed muscle sore from trekking uh through the Arizona Desert, a trip that failed when his wife didn't have the strength to go on.
He said the couple would rest for a few days and try again, a plan echoed by dozens there.
The shelter's manager said he has not seen such a rush of migrants since 86 when the United States allowed 2.6 million illegal residents to get American citizenship.
So I knew it.
The numbers coming across the border are just they're increasing uh at a rate people haven't seen in 20 years because they know amnesty awaits them.
Well, the the Democratic funeral crashers are back.
Bill Clinton crashed another uh memorial, this one for one of his uh former aides, Eli Siegel, will have the audio soundbites coming up for you in the next hour.
Our buddies at uh WorldNet Daily uh have uh the report of a Zogby poll.
Eight thousand people, survey of nearly eight thousand people shows that these coast-to-coast protests against immigration proposals in Congress have not persuaded a majority of likely American voters.
Asked whether the protests have made likely voters more or less sympathetic toward undocumented workers.
Sixty-one percent said they're less likely to be sympathetic to the plight of illegals as a result of these protests, while only 32% of respondents said that they're now more sympathetic.
Younger respondents were more likely to be sympathetic than were older participants, and while 56% of Democrats said the protests made them feel more sympathy for unlawful workers, just six percent of Republicans felt that way.
Not surprising, but that's a huge sample, 8,000 uh 8,000 people.
8,000 uh don't know if it's likely registered whatever voters.
Uh the survey also shows an overwhelming majority of Americans, nearly four out of five is doubtful that the president and Congress will find a fair and effective solution to the immigration crisis.
Eighty-eight percent of Democrats, eighty-five percent of independents said it's unlikely a solution will be found.
Sixty-six percent of Republicans agreed.
So the uh the backlash, the backfire is uh is continuing.
In fact, there's uh there's other uh poll data here.
This is the Times, LA Times Bloomberg poll.
Most back a tighter border with a guest worker plan.
People want comprehensive immigration solution.
The fence, building a fence, building a wall, wins 42 to 35 percent with the felon label.
If you ask the question with the fellow labels, Americans showed markedly less enthusiasm for allowing illegal workers to continue to flow into the U.S. than they did for proposals to uh permit the estimated 11 to 12 million legal, illegal immigrants already here to remain uh legally.
So uh as predicted, it was only it was not hard to figure out.
The question is at what point will America's elected officials decide to uh side with the citizens somehow, some way, rather than uh those who are not yet citizens.
Be back right after this and wrap up the hour.
Uh, isn't it a sad day out there in television?
Uh, Hillary Clinton impeached after uh one season as uh president of the United States on an ABC primetime uh program.
We'll have details of that.
Lots of other stuff coming up, folks.
Stay right where you are.
Can't wait to get back here.
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