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May 3, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:15
May 3, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Hi, folks, and welcome back.
We are here.
You can count on us.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program, a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations on a daily basis.
We have fun here discussing the issues of the day that determine our future.
If you want to participate, 800-282-2882 is the number.
Looky here.
United 93 is at the top of the box office for this weekend.
Now, United 93, by the way, you know, I when it when it uh it opened in second place on Friday and it kept second place through the weekend, and yeah, the drive-by immediate saying, well, yeah, we were right.
People just don't want to see this uh movie.
Wrong.
Uh the way you have to look at United 93, it's on less than half the screens in the country that the some of the other movies that opened this weekend and and opened earlier are on.
Uh it's taken in as of uh as of Monday about 12.5 million dollars, and I think they were hoping for 14 in their opening weekend, but it's launched to uh uh number one status here.
It means there's some uh word of mouth uh that is accompanying the movie.
Big earthquake out there uh near the island nation of Tonga, an 8.0 earthquake in the ocean, underneath the surface of the ocean.
There are now tsunami warming uh warnings that have been issued for New Zealand, Fiji, and uh other islands in the Southwest Pacific, as well as New Zealand.
Now, the warning for uh uh I guess Fiji is less than a half the tsunami could hit them in less than uh thirty minutes now.
New Zealand about an hour and a half.
Now there's interesting news out of New Zealand.
Keith Richards, who you know fell out of a palm tree.
Uh do we do we know what he was doing in it?
I mean, you've you've seen we have palm trees all over the place, folks.
I mean, I I don't know how you'd get to the top of one.
I mean, I we have the guys come out, uh they'll be out soon to chop all the coconuts off at the beginning of hurricane season, uh, so that if you get a hurricane, those those coconuts do not become flying missiles.
So, you know, you make sure your neighbors do it.
But you know the way it happens, these these uh these guys come out and they put spikes on their shoes and belts around, and they actually climb up and then they hack the uh the coconuts off, they plumb it to the ground and then clean them up and take them off.
I don't know how you get to the top of a palm tree.
I there is no top of a I mean there is, but there's not you can't sit on a on a palm frond.
I I can't visualize this.
There must be in New Zealand palm trees that I've not seen.
But anyway, Keith Richards was up in one, he fell out of the thing, and he hit his head and he had to go to hospital, and they released him with a mild concussion.
But now he's been readmitted to the hospital in New Zealand.
He's in the house, they have to drain his brain.
He's got brain fluid in the skull.
They got to drain that out after suffering dull headaches.
A newspaper there claims that uh Keith Richards actually suffered a brain hemorrhage in the fall.
Surgery is imminent.
Source told the paper Keith's accident has turned out worse than everybody feared after the tests.
Doctors decided they should drain his skull.
It's given him a scare, but he's been told that he should make a full recovery once it's done.
You know, you know he was a regular viewer of the Rush TV show.
He was.
He was he was up, he was okay, he was up there looking for coconut.
Okay, so he wasn't sitting in the tree.
He was up looking for coconut.
Well, you can see them, it's just a question of getting to them.
You know, that the Go to the you know, go Google Palm Tree, find a picture of one of these.
It's it's a strange image to have to uh uh conjure up.
Also, before we get to our immigration stack, I just want to give you one little bit of news.
Actually, two bits of news, one immigration, one not.
In North Carolina, a bunch of Republicans in name only, Speaker of the House of Soforth were thrown out in the primary yesterday.
Conservative Republicans won big in North Carolina.
In Virginia, the Day Labor site in Herndon may have changed the face of politics in that town.
Steve De Benedetis, a resident who opposed the Day Labor Center, has been elected mayor of Herndon, defeating the incumbent Michael O'Reilly.
De Benedetis captured 1,363 votes, 130 more than O'Reilly got.
The center opened late last year, replacing a chaotic unofficial site in a 7 Eleven parking lot as a spot for employers to recruit day laborers.
We're talking about illegal immigrants here.
There was also turnover on the Herndon Town Council as only two of them were reelected.
Now, what this story doesn't say, and this is an AP story, what this story doesn't point out is that everybody responsible for the building of this day labor center for illegal immigrants was swept out of office in Herndon, Virginia yesterday, and Herndon is no conservative uh uh burg, uh, if you will.
And people that oppose the day labor site were elected.
Meanwhile, Congress, with all these protests yesterday, is working fast to come up with a new immigration plan.
They still don't get it.
We got to go to the audio sound bites because the uh uh CEO of Big Oil, uh, ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, was grilled by Matt Lauer today on the Today Show.
First of a couple bites here.
Matt Lauer says, critics say that the big oil companies crushed the competition and they are manipulating the prices.
What's the truth?
Obviously, the truth is that we do not get together manipulate prices.
That would be illegal.
Uh, there have been any number of investigations into our industry over the last twenty to thirty years.
None of those have ever found any evidence of price collusion.
Our profits of 8.4 billion, it's a large number.
I think you have to remember that Exxon Mobil is a global corporation.
Uh seventy percent of our profits are earned in countries outside of the United States.
We do business in about 200 countries the world over.
So about thirty percent of our profits are earned here in the United States.
So of the 8.4 billion, only about 2.3 of that was earned in the United States.
And let me remind you, first it was Russia, then Venezuela, now Bolivia's soaring energy prices are fueling a global wave of natural resource nationalization, souring the investment landscape for international oil companies like Exxon Mobil.
They stand to lose three and a half billion dollars.
Total of eight billion dollars private investment on the line if Bolivia nationalizes the field.
It's a natural gas field, but where there's natural gas, there's oil.
Uh and again, uh this is big dictator.
Uh this is the dictator dividend, as Max Boot calls it.
The real people benefiting from this are all these dictatorships and autocracies that are nationalizing their oil fields.
Uh live it, love it, learn it.
The next exchange between uh Mr. Tillerston and uh and Matt Lauer.
Uh Lauer asks if Exxon Mobil has a responsibility to curb profits.
You have a responsibility to your shareholders, your public company.
And I think in announcing your profits last week, you also announced the thirty-two cent per share dividend.
So you are meeting your responsibility to your shareholders.
Does a company like Exxon Mobil have any responsibility to the other people in the general public at a time when individual consumers are being hurt by gas prices, companies, entire industries, airline industry, the the automobile industry.
Does Exxon Mobil have any responsibility to curb profits and help out those people?
I think our responsibility, Matt, is to ensure that people have the energy they need to go about their daily lives, to continue to support the economy, the economic growth in this country and the world over, and to do that you have to have energy.
Let's go to cut five next and stay in order here, because next Matt Lauer says, Well, would Exxon Mobil be willing to lower profits over the summer to help out in this time of need and crisis as it's been described?
Well, as you've pointed out, we work for the shareholder, and the investors who own our stock are over two million individual Americans and a lot of pension plans, a lot of teacher retirement plans, and our job is to go out and make the most money for their for those people so that their pensions are secure so that they see the benefits of our work.
Which is that's a no.
Well, that's not the business.
We're in the business to make money.
Yeah, we're not in the business to give it away.
I mean, this is this is this is I I uh you uh not even the best and brightest on television understand economics.
Audio soundbite number four, another uh exchange.
Uh Matt takes a swipe um at the uh Republicans, asking if uh uh if Republicans have turned on big oil in an election year.
Do you think, Mr. Tillison, that some of the very same politicians who have been in your corner over the years are now turning on you in an attempt to posture prior to elections?
There's no question that we are in an election year.
This is top of the mind issue for all the American public for all the reasons that we've already talked about this morning, because it is a significant issue to the American public.
But in terms of these investigations, again as to price manipulation, I've spoken to that that there have been many investigations, never any uh collusion has been.
Head back to uh audio soundbite number two here, because this is something the drive-by media never tells us.
Here is Mr. Tillison, uh ExxonMobil CEO talking about their first quarter profits.
Obviously, the truth is that we do not get together and manipulate prices.
That would be illegal.
Uh there have been any number of investigations into our industry over the last twenty to thirty years.
None of those have ever found any evidence of price collusion.
Our profits of 8.4 billion.
It's a large number.
Listen.
I think you have to remember that Exxon Mobil is a global corporation.
Uh seventy percent of our profits are earned in countries outside of the United States.
We do business in about 200 countries the world over.
So about 30 percent of our profits are earned here in the United States.
So 8.4 billion, only about 2.3 of that was earned in the United States.
You hear that 2.3 billion.
Folks, that's can th that's first quarter.
That's that's I mean, I don't know what it's chump change.
2.3 billion in one quarter in this country.
Compare that to the federal budget.
Uh at what is spent.
But the point is this.
They had a screaming headlines last week.
Exxon Mobile Record profit $8.4 billion.
Everybody went nuts and had a cow.
Thirty percent of it uh in the uh United States.
And that, of course, uh not reported.
Got to take a break.
We will be back and roll right on.
We'll get your phone calls quickly as possible after this.
All right, folks, we just heard some sound bites from uh Rex Tillerson, the uh uh CEO of Exxon Mobil.
And we have also shared with you over the course of uh uh recent years various sound bites from say Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin.
After having heard the CEO of Exxon Mobil, who would you rather have working for you?
Dick Durbin or the Exxon guy?
Who who would you rather have actually solving your problems?
Dick Durbin or the Exxon guy.
Pick any Democrat.
In fact, for the purpose of this, you could pick half the Republicans too.
When asking who you'd rather have solving problems.
Now, I also have an observation to make here.
Matt Loward, you you guys, you have a duty to curb your profits and give it back and help the airlines and help this and help that.
Are you guys colluding?
Are you guys getting any better in setting the price?
Your critics say that you're colluding and you're conspiring and so forth.
Well, you know, I think the way to react to that, Mr. Tillerson will never say this, but that's why I'm here.
Exxon has the same responsibility to the public as NBC and all the rest of the drive-by media in reporting the news, and that's to be honest.
They lie all the time at the drive-by media.
I wonder, maybe we should convene hearings.
How come the media is never investigated when they lie?
We know they lie.
We know they make things up, they know they purposely get things wrong.
I wonder, should we have hearings and ask do the big media outlets conspire or collude to give us the same news?
I had a montage yesterday about how it was the third anniversary of Bush's landing on the aircraft carrier.
We had a montage of at least eight different drive-by media outlets.
How does this happen?
How do they report the same identical news?
Not only all day, but day after day and month after month, word for word, in fact.
How does this happen?
Is there collusion?
Now we've addressed this before.
I actually don't think big media drive-by media people get together and plan the day.
They get together the night before.
They're consuming adult beverages.
They're talking about the news, and they start sharing thoughts.
As somebody will say something, everybody else, that's the ticket.
That's and then they all go out and use it.
They all think alike.
They're all the same.
Are they colluding to give us the same news?
How is it that their reporters always wind up at the same places saying identical things?
Do they all use the same wire stories?
You all use the same fax machine, the same press releases.
Do they all how does this how does this happen?
We need an investigation.
Paul in Fort Worth, Texas, uh glad to have you on the program, sir.
Welcome.
Hello, Rush.
I'm going to speak to you today.
Thank you.
Rush, I've been an oil trader for uh some thirty years, and uh I know how all this pricing stuff works.
And the reason why Exxon or any of the other oil companies could never be charged with price gouging is because the price is automatic and it's based on the futures market every single day.
So uh they they are totally out of the loop on this.
I have been trying to tell people this, Paul, until I'm blue in the face that the futures market, the commodities market, bid the price.
Mr. Tillerson actually said that today, I think, on uh on the Today Show.
And I've also pointed out look at the price goes up every time the president of Iran starts rattling the sabers about nuking Israel.
Down seven and a half cents uh as I speak uh on gasoline anyway.
And uh the the reason why they they never get into this is because the media certainly they don't understand it.
The politicians will never understand the market.
So it's just it's they they just have no idea how the market works.
Uh that may be true, but they don't want to understand it either.
That would only get in the way of the template or the action line.
The action line, they need an enemy uh and they need victims.
So the enemy's big oil, guys like you, uh involved in the whole uh process, and the victims, of course, are voters.
That's right.
So you're saying that the future price of gas is down seven and a half cents right now as you speak?
Right now, uh crude oil is down a dollar and a half, and uh and all that pri all these prices today will filter into an index.
And depending on a contract uh that any oil company has with a consumer, whether it's a prior week average or a prior month average, then you have your your lag.
So that's why you see different prices uh on the street from one corner to the next is because a lot of these companies have contracts that call for different price uh timing um, whether it's prior week, prior month, index related pricing.
Question for you, uh Paul, as a as an admitted member of the club that's gouging Americans uh in the in the in the commodities, and I'm just joking.
Why do you why do you think it is that of all the people involved in this, you guys, the oil traders, the commodity futures traders, are not being criticized and not being asked, hey, could you bid the price down to help out the airlines?
Could you bid the price down to help out the American consumer?
Could you bid the price down uh to to uh to help out uh granny up in Massachusetts during the uh the upcoming winter for fuel oil?
How come nobody jawbones you guys to also contribute to maybe curb your profits?
Well, Rush, if they really found out how this stuff works, they'd realize that the pension funds, everyone that has a 401k, we're all involved in setting the price because these big funds that uh that go out and manage all this money, they're putting larger and larger percentages of their um cash into these um into the commodity market.
Exactly right.
So what well, the answer to the question is you couldn't bid it down unless the market takes it that direction.
There is no artif there's no artificial bidding up or down.
If collectively we decide that the market's gonna go down for whatever reason, say Iran goes away, then the commodity market will go down because everyone with a long position will want to liquidate and take their profit.
A long position means you've bid up.
A long position means you've bought it.
So if you if you have a big profit in your position and you want and you feel that the market's gonna go down, you want to take your profit, and that's what makes it go down.
Precisely.
And then you've got we only have a fifteen percent capital gains rate, makes taking the profit less painful.
Uh and and so but you've also got some short sellers.
You got some people betting on the price to go down.
What happens to them during all this?
Well, if the pro if the if the market goes up, then they get hurt.
Right.
Now, how many people you think getting hurt in the commodities market because they're selling short the last month or two?
Uh uh late now I think uh everyone's long.
So they're not idiots, they're not idiots.
All right.
Well, look, I have I appreciate how long you've been doing this for thirty years, do you say?
Thirty years, and uh I worked for major oil companies.
Uh now I work for an airline, but don't ask me who.
All right, which tell me then, you're based on your experience, uh at what point will the price is seventy-five, will it come down from that significantly and hold, do you think, based on your market experience?
I got thirty seconds.
Well, it depends on the uh the geopolitical.
As I said, if if the Iran situation goes away, uh if the bird flew all of a sudden rears its head, uh then the market will go down.
All right.
I appreciate that.
Thank you uh so much.
There you there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
Once again, validating and confirming what your host, El Rushbo has been telling you.
The commodity market right now reacting to worldwide tensions.
Uh most uh predominantly would be the situation with uh Iran.
We have to take a break.
We'll be back and continue after this.
Keeping a sharp eye out for the tsunami that's uh supposed to hit Fiji.
Uh I heard about this an hour ago.
It was supposed to hit Fiji in thirty minutes.
There it's a half hour late if it's coming.
Somebody somewhere is reporting a small tsunami uh somewhere that uh might be on Fiji, but um nobody knows you know these earthquakes happen under the sea if you how big a tsunami is gonna be, they're still debating whether there's gonna be one, they have to put out the warnings anyway.
But regardless, folks, there's nothing we can do about it.
Um we couldn't stop the earthquake, we can't stop whatever tsunami tsunami happens, and uh we can always blame it on global warming, but that's about as much we can do.
Well, they well uh no, I'm talking they can evacuate the people around and I can't evacuate the people.
I mean we can't stop the tsunami is what I'm saying.
We can't.
Uh what would Mayor Nagan do?
That's an interesting question.
If Ray Nagan were mayor of Fiji.
He did announce plans, by the way, uh the new new evacuation plans.
Do you know people are do you what I read today?
People are already fleeing the keys.
They're already fleeing the lower keys, Brian.
The hurricane season hadn't even started, they haven't even spotted a hurricane, but people are already getting out of there.
Um Mayor Negan uh in New Orleans uh said that school buses are gonna operate uh if there's a need to evacuate the city next time.
But it's it's really up to you to get your butt out of there.
Uh it's it this is essence of what uh of what he said to the people.
It's up to you to get your butt out of here.
We're gonna have the buses running this time, but uh beyond that.
Let me give you a simple explanation of how the futures market in uh commodities such as oil and jet fuel and gasoline and all that works.
Let's take airline A. And uh, you know, people say, well, Rush, you're you're in the media and you understand economics.
How come the rest of the media can't?
Well, I don't think they've ever been taught it.
And I don't think they're really curious to learn it uh because it uh uh it it doesn't even if they did learn it it wouldn't matter, it doesn't fit their action line.
Uh you have to whatever the Democrats are gonna say about something, the media is gonna echo it.
I don't care, you know, which came first, chicken or the egg.
Uh they're all liberals, so they're all gonna echo the uh the same thing.
But airline A, just pick your favorite airline.
Um, this is a real simplified way of how this happens, but on the futures market.
Airline A is worried about rising jet fuel costs.
When they set their budgets, uh they say, okay, let's do what we can to lock in future prices as low as we can so that we don't get a price shock.
Because the last thing that you want to be able to budget labor costs, fuel costs, all you want to be able to budget that as much at as far out in the future as you can.
Because the last thing you want is a price shock which plays havoc with your fares and it just so you you you look into the futures market, and they say, okay, let's lock in future prices now so that we don't get a price shock.
So they go out and they try to find a deal on the futures market with somebody who's bought up some futures in jet fuel.
The supplier, supplier B says to Airline A, okay, I I uh the prices are high enough for me.
I'd like to sell the oil I'll be pumping or the jet fuel I'm gonna be getting from the refiner in the next few months and years, so I'll make a deal.
Let's see what the airline guy's willing to pay me.
I'll tell him what I'll agree to.
They start negotiating if a price if this guy in the futures market's willing to sell his position to airline A, the deal is made and the price is locked in for the future.
That's that's th the now that doesn't tell you how the futures market's bidding up the price that we've done that uh with uh with oil and these uh the geopolitical circumstances and situation, but uh i it once you start looking at if you have I don't I don't folks, I don't mean to sound condescending here.
I re really really don't uh but it's it really is not complicated.
It's what amazes me about why it's not taught.
Once you understand this stuff and how it works, uh it makes all the sense in the world.
And and it it um well did my explanation confuse you, Mr. Sn.
What uh well, okay, Mr. Snurdley, why did you have to bring that now?
Sturdly says he doesn't understand how you go in the cattle futures market with ten grand and bring a hundred thousand dollars out.
Uh that that's you know that's that's that's that's Arkansas.
Uh uh that's that's not what really h I I don't want to go that that was that was not a result of the free flow of data and and uh information commodities on the markets.
I mean that that was that was what it that was that was that what we were told uh that it was, but uh it's just not what it was.
John in Chicago, hello, sir, welcome to the EIB network.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
How are you doing today?
I'm fine, sir.
Thank you.
I saw my own members here talking to my hero.
Well, I I I I can understand that.
I appreciate it.
Uh and I I don't you don't sound nervous at all.
You just don't like you but you don't sound nervous at all.
Oh thank you.
Um Rush, I'm a truck driver.
And um I just want to say, you know the people that are complaining about the profits and Exxon or this is just ridiculous.
You know, it's uh it's a company, they're doing business legally.
Uh I I'm glad that they're making money.
You know, that shows that the economy is thriving.
And uh, you know, the fact that 70 percent of their profits are are coming from outside the United States, to me that's that's even better.
You know, they're doing their part to help out help us out uh with the trade deficit, you know.
Um this is just uh I I don't see how anyone can have a problem with it.
You know, it sounds like a a 12-year-old who who uh you know sees that uh another 12-year-old has a has more candy than they have and you know they want some of it.
Uh it's just ridiculous.
I personally uh called the White House yesterday, the comment line, and told them if they send me a hundred dollar check uh rebate check for gas prices, I'm uh sign it and mail a decks on mobile.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
You know, I'm not an economist.
I'm not uh that's a great idea, except though it's not the White House's idea.
No, it isn't.
It was it's uh well it's it it's Senator Frist's idea, but it's dead.
Uh it's dead.
There's they've got a story here in the stack.
Uh uh Congressman Boehner, who um Republican leader in the House, uh called it insulting.
Now who I've heard that said by somebody else last week.
I said that's right, that's right.
I am the one that called it insult.
I that's true.
It was insulting.
Is that all they think we're worth?
Buy us off for a hundred bucks.
I like John's idea.
Sign the check over to Exxon Mobile.
That might make me rethink the plan.
Want to go out to go out and support it, except I know that a lot of people, if they got a hundred bucks in the mail would not send it anywhere.
They would uh they would keep it.
Once more economic news out there, folks.
An April shower of tax revenue, soaring treasury receipts, signal a far smaller than expected.
There it is again, U.S. budget deficit for fiscal year two thousand six.
All the daily data for receipt of tax payments by the Treasury for the key month of April are now available.
The results speak for themselves.
Uh by the estimates of people at Action Economics, April receipts soared at a 15% year-over-year rate.
This is well in excess of the two percent year-over-year growth in outlays, which were depressed by a pull ahead of some spending into March because of calendar effects.
So uh tax receipts 15% higher this year than last.
How can this happen with tax cuts?
How can it happen with tax cuts?
My friends, well, it happens every time uh with uh with it does.
And and now, I don't know that this is strictly income taxes.
If it is, then that's one thing.
But if it's all taxes, let's not forget that the gasoline tax.
Uh well, no, that's that's constant.
That's uh the that that that would be but people are buying more, so uh and then there's this America's factories uh manufacturing.
America's factories saw orders shoot up in March by the largest amount in nearly a year.
Fresh evidence the economy was pushing ahead at a good clip into the spring.
New bookings placed with manufacturers jumped by 4.2%, a noticeable pickup from the 0.4% increase in February.
This is from the commerce department.
The 4.2% gain was the best showing since May of 2005 when factory orders rose by the same amount.
The performance was far better than the one and a half percent rise economists were forecasting, and there it is.
So we've had a plethora of uh economic news this week, and every story features the fact that the performance exceeded what the experts thought would happen.
Josh and yeah, the high price of oil's in there too as well, folks.
John in uh in Louisville, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Mega mega ditto's rush from the home of the Kentucky Derby and part of Big Tobacco.
Yep, that's absolutely true.
Great rich heritage there.
It's an honor and a privilege to talk to the Maha Rushi.
Thank you, sir.
I was just I had to call in just to uh tell you about something I had stumbled upon on the internet yesterday, a bunch of blogs and different websites that were all geared and just touting the point that Hugo Chavez is some time type of great humanitarian of the world,
and that he takes all of this oil money that he's able to siphon out of the United States through our lovely sitco stations, and he does so many wonderful humanitarian things for all of his people, and it would just amaze me how it just proved the point that you make all the time that the left they hate big oil if it's American, but for some reason they love it.
I mean, these websites are even promoting the fact that you need to only go to sit go stations and support Chavez and Venezuela because for some reason I guess communist controlled oil is is a wonderful thing for the planet.
Well, just it's just bottom bottom line is the left never met a dictator or a communist that didn't love.
Uh I mean, remember when uh when uh Chinese uh Chiccom President Who was here?
I mean, I would have thought that the the drive-by media was his secret police, the way they were trying to round up that protester.
They went they they they came to whose defense like I've never seen them come to anybody's defense.
Oh, how terrible.
Oh, the protocol by oh, this is horrible.
They love Castro, they love Chavez.
Uh these people are nationalizing their oil and they're giving nothing to anybody.
They're they do subsidize their um citizens with typical communist welfare state subsidies, uh, but they don't create prosperity for their people with their profits from oil or their profits from uh from anything else.
But it's it it goes back in part to what we were talking about yesterday regarding Shelby Steele's piece.
Uh the left is just they are look it.
I mean, the left is the left, and there's an ideological definition, and they fulfill it uh regularly and daily.
But at the same time they have this to them, uh communists are the little guys.
Uh uh Chavez just a little guy just trying to do the best against the big bad Uncle Sam.
And the same thing with Castro, just, you know, just trying to really put together a little paradise down there in Cuba, a little island nation up against big bad Uncle Sam with the racist past.
And so anything these guys do to score points against us, the left loves because they just they are obsessed with self-loathing as Americans, and they are obsessed with guilt.
Still waiting on the uh tsunami uh to arrive in Fiji from the earthquake uh island nation of Tonga out there in the Southwest Pacific.
This is Ken in Ashburn, Virginia.
Welcome to the uh program.
Diddle's rush.
Thanks a lot to take my call.
Uh just a second.
Ken, just if I'm sorry, that tsunami warnings have been uh canceled, uh ladies and gentlemen.
No tsunamis.
All right, Ken, I'm sorry, go ahead.
No problem.
It's uh the geographic illiteracy issue, Rush.
Um let's let's we need to consider who the messenger is here.
Uh the National Geographic Society.
Uh I I canceled my subscription to National Geographic about a year ago because they have turned into uh typical PC rag.
Uh p pick any any National Geographic magazine at random, look at the cover.
It'll be the the dangers of oil are the ice caps are melting.
Yeah, I know it's it's it's and and of course, you know, it's really changed.
I remember when I was a kid, National Geographic was actually the first place I saw a woman uh topless.
They had those pictures all over the place.
And and uh you know I think they showed them to us in school.
I mean, they they showed them to us in school at least.
In those articles, they would have maps of where those topless women lived.
Exactly.
Now if you look to go there now.
They there's no they they they do not deal with geography.
They deal with politically correct causes.
Yeah, but you know, you it it's one thing.
I know they did the survey and so forth.
Actually, Roper, the Roper Pole Company did the survey for them.
But look, how you you can't let the you can't let uh the schools off the hook on this.
This is absurd, the results of this survey.
...system, but it's also National Geographic Society.
Their mission is to educate America on geography.
And here it's the pot calling the kettle black.
They have dropped the ball.
They do geography anymore.
That's it's a good point.
I didn't know they had a mission statement.
I thought they were just out there to make money with their magazine.
Uh well, it's it's a whole society.
Uh you know, their their focus is geography, uh, exploration.
They used to they used to sponsor African explorers of Africa, uh different uh old explorers.
But if you pick up pick up a National Geographic, you'll be surprised.
It it it ain't your dad's National Geographic.
Yeah, uh that's true.
I watched some uh National Geographic uh uh television.
You know, they've got the channel and they produce things for other channels out there.
Some of it is fairly interesting, but it's not really about geography, as you as you mentioned.
It's a lot of animals eating animals.
You ought to see that in high definition, too.
That's looks great.
Yeah.
By the way, I wonder how many people can find Tonga on a map.
Well, after today, I don't know.
I mean, I know where it is.
Even before I saw uh it's all it's all over the uh the cable network, so they're showing where it is and where the tsunami.
They had they had uh possibility of tsunami waves even hitting uh Southern California.
Yeah.
But that's it, Rush.
Thank you very much.
I'm glad you uh glad you called, Ken.
Thanks so much.
Uh what's what's the Mr. Snowdle.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Uh right.
Uh Mr Mist Mr. Snerdley said, yeah, so one of the things about this geographic survey, this the their their poll is that what percentage of was it a was it a third or or a half didn't know where Louisiana is, and more a third didn't know where Louisiana is, and more than that didn't know where um uh Mississippi is.
And Snerdley's point is well, it's the media's fault because they just assumed everybody knew where New Orleans was.
We never got a map of the United States showing Louisiana.
That's not true.
If you were watching this leading up to it, saw the satellite photos of the of the hurricane hitting.
They were not uh they were like they were they showed the whole Gulf Coast, Mr. Sn.
That's right.
They didn't show a map of the whole U.S. So you're you're saying that most of these kids get their news from television, and if television doesn't show them where things are on a map, they're never gonna learn it.
Could be something's something's askew somewhere.
Stay with us.
All right, folks, we wrapped up a couple of uh great broadcast hours.
Not very many uh precious broadcast moments remaining in this hour, but many more ahead.
Come back.
I want to share with you a Fred Barnes story from the Los Angeles Times, December 9th, 1986, in the sixth year of the Reagan presidency about how conservatives were meeting and discussing the problem of the failed presidency and what to do to distance themselves from it.
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