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May 17, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:19
May 17, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Let me print something out.
Hi folks and welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Thrill and delight to be with you.
As always, from behind the golden EIB microphone, President Bush just signed the Tax Cut Extension Bill into law.
This is the $70 billion tax cut that will extend capital gains rates to 15% and a couple of other low-tax rates that are responsible in large part for this reviving booming economy.
800-282-2882, if you'd like to be on the program.
Okay, I said we're going to take a program in some different directions here.
I'm not going to do three hours on the rebellion over illegal immigration.
Set the table on that.
If you want to call about it, feel free.
As you know, we've also discussed the phenomenon of lazy, slothful Generation Y kids.
Hillary Clinton brought this up last week, claiming that there's a bunch of lazy kids and that they expect way too much too soon.
And work to them is a four-letter word.
And their daughter Chelsea called up and gave her a little grief and said, hey, mom, you better apologize.
And Hillary said, I guess I'll apologize.
I'm sorry.
Even though Chelsea started at $100,000 right out of school.
There's a column today in the Los Angeles Times in the local section by Bob Sipchin.
Letting students off the hook doesn't help them.
At least in part because of a kid named Scarecrow, I see Judge Robert B. Friedman as an enabler, the Alameda County Superior Court judge, probably still glowing from the praise that civil rights groups and the teary-eyed students have showered on his decision to let seniors who flunked the state's high school exit exam graduate anyway.
We mentioned this on this program a number of times.
There's a state high school test, an exam that you have to pass in order to graduate from Haskruel in California.
And the judge said, screw it, because a bunch of minorities didn't pass it.
And people raised hell, judge, that's all right.
Not necessarily you did the required coursework.
Get out of here.
So the columnist here says, I think his sloppy thinking will reinforce young people's suspicion that adults are as capricious as they are weak-willed.
My take on the exam began to solidify in the pre-dawn chill of a late winter morning as I watched seniors who had failed the test begin gathering outside Fremont Haskrule.
Not long after the sun rose, 150 of those teenagers headed off in buses for a test preparation boot camp at Los Angeles Trade Tech College.
Christina Mata, 18, sat near the back wearing a baby fat jacket and jeans, bashfully tapping the tiny diamond in her left cheek.
She said she wants to be a teacher, but she had twice failed both the math and English segments.
Scarecrow, as his football teammates call the 17-year-old Deshaun Hill, sat nearby, edging into the aisle in the conversation.
The bus rumbled past storefront churches, 99-cent shops, and Scarecrow spouted his story in full sentence bursts.
All my life, I've been good at math.
When I grow up, I want to be an accountant.
In the year 2005, I applied to many colleges.
I got accepted at only two of them.
Anyway, the bottom line is here that guy says it's tough boosting students over obstacles, economic, societal, cultural, psychological.
And now there's another hurdle.
Some kids smug certainty that authorities would again lack the nerve to hold them accountable.
So when the judge says, screw the test if you didn't pass it, I think this test is ridiculous anyway.
That trains kids, oh, we can beat these adults, that we can beat the system.
They'll acquiesce.
If we make enough noise and raise enough hell, they'll cave into us.
And so letting students off the hook instead of challenging them doesn't help them.
Amazing to see this in the LA Times, but there it is.
And to the extent that there are lazy kids out there, it's probably more due to this kind of acquiescence.
I just want to be their friends.
No, we're pushing them too hard.
No, life is tough enough.
Let's just, they've been through so many years at school.
So what they don't pass the test.
It doesn't mean anything.
And that becomes a learned behavior.
You can beat the system.
And you know, a lot of people, students, kids especially, will end up spending more time trying to figure out shortcuts than if they would just sit down and study and do the work.
It's just incredible.
But the seductivity of figuring out a way to beat the system and thinking that you're not having to do the work when you actually spend more time and more work figuring out a way to cheat.
And if you just did the work, it's something that this is not specific to Generation Y.
This is part of human nature.
Fidel Castro's upset at being named a billionaire on the Forbes Richest People in the World list.
And he said that he would offer his resignation if the United States can prove that he has a huge personal fortune as claimed by Forbes.
He said, if they can prove that I have an account abroad, I'll resign from my position for my current responsibilities.
Earlier this month, he was listed by Forbes as the seventh wealthiest ruler in the world with $900 million.
When I saw this, I toyed with the idea of calling some of my friends, saying, Hey, I'll contribute some, you contribute some.
Let's open an account in a guy's name, and then we'll send the authorities out there and prove that he's got this fortune.
There's no question that when Forbes gets on the case, they're pretty accurate.
Now, also, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of children has come up on this program a lot recently.
And there's an interesting story at Tech Central Station today, libertarian site, called the Parent Trap.
And as you know, the replacement birth rate in this country is not good.
The number of people having women having babies is pretty close to below replacement levels.
And you add that to the abortions that take place.
And we are, we face a bit of a crisis, especially if you factor all the illegal immigration that's coming in, American females having fewer babies below the replacement rate.
What do you?
I'm sorry to be distracted here, folks, but Dawn and Snerdley are both away from this.
Dawn said that women are having fewer babies in America because they have boyfriends like me.
Well, you may be right.
That's what this story is about, but there's a problem here because fewer American women are having babies, all the abortions and the illegals coming in.
With the birth rate now at pretty much below or close to below replacement levels, we're looking at a whole bunch of trends that could signal a major demographic shift in this country.
So the guy, Glenn Harlan Reynolds at Tech Central Station, has taken a stab at this.
He said, not long ago, we worried about baby booms and overpopulation.
Now some people are worrying about a global baby bust.
Writing in foreign affairs, Philip Longman says it's mostly because of economics.
In nations rich and poor, under all forms of government, as more and more of the world's population moves to urban areas in which children offer little or no economic reward to their parents, and as women acquire economic opportunities and reproductive control, the social and financial costs of childbearing continue to rise.
In the U.S., the direct cost of raising a middle-class child born this year through age 18, this according to the Agriculture Department, now exceeds $200,000 and it does not include the cost of if the kid wants to go to college.
Now, the cost in foregone wages can easily exceed $1 million even for families with modest earning power.
Meanwhile, although Social Security and private pension plans depend critically on the human capital created by parents, they offer the same benefits and often more to those who avoid the burdens of raising a family.
He's clearly right about the economics.
Children used to provide cheap labor and retirement security all in one.
Now, kids are pretty much all cost and no return from a financial perspective.
And that suggests that subsidies might solve the problem.
Vladimir Putin thinks so as he plans to offer generous parental benefits to encourage citizens to have more kids.
Pardon me, something that's necessary as Russia's population is in an absolute decline.
Meanwhile, the U.S. commentator John Gibson calling for a procreation, not recreation.
But I think that attitude is part of the problem.
Procreation, not recreation, as an old timer once reportedly said in response to the make love, not war slogan.
Hell, in my mind, we did both.
So the bottom line here is that nowadays, children don't get the same treatment that they did in the past.
I've heard repeatedly that my state's Department of Children's Services considers it neglect to leave a nine-year-old alone in the house for any time at all.
So kids are, it really is true.
If you go back to the early days of the country, as soon as the kid was able to hit the field and plow the field and walk behind the mule, the kid was doing it.
Getting up and milking the cows at 5 a.m. and then going to school and then coming home and doing the rest of the chores.
And that contributed work to the fence.
Now we've got Hillary Clinton running around talking about how lazy they are and how work is a four-letter word.
What it all adds up to is that there's no pure outgo calculation when having kids.
How much is it going to cost versus what is an economic benefit to having it?
In the old days, there was that.
But it is an interesting trend that is happening with the, and it's not just around the world, it's worse in other places, but even in this country, the replacement birth rate is getting dangerously close to being short.
One other story before we go, and I just can't help it, folks.
I just love the story.
It's from Wolford, North Dakota.
The six boys who make up the entire high school graduating class chose blaze orange and camouflage as their class colors because they could.
Kurt Fulman, the co-valedictorian, said, we're unique, so we like to be different.
It's not a hunting thing as much as it is a manly thing.
We wanted something that said male.
The colors became possible after the one girl in their class since kindergarten transferred before her senior year.
We probably still would have had, would have tried for these colors, but she wouldn't have let it happen, said Fulman.
The boys adopted the tiger lily as the class flower, excuse me, since it was the most manly flower that they could find.
It's orange.
It has a tiger in its name, said Hudson Dunn, the other co-valedictorian.
Another senior, Mike Sell, said the lack of girls at the school had some benefits.
With no girls nipping at you or complaining, you can decide things easier.
The boys said consensus was reached quickly on the macho class slogan, we'll find a way or make one.
The senior class trip to Disney World was more fun without female classmates around, said this is not boding well for the replacement birth rate here in North Dakota.
With us being all guys, it was all rides all the time.
You didn't always have to stop to have pictures taken.
You have people nipping at your heels telling you what you wanted to do was wrong, complaining.
We got to do what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it, dress the way we wanted to dress, and we had to be men and we got to be men.
Back in just a second.
And here's a giant C, I told you so.
You remember when the first Family Medical Leave Act was proposed and passed?
What was that, 1993, 94?
It was a Clinton era deal.
Did it happen under Bush 41?
It was a Clinton.
All right.
I said, it was 12 weeks.
You can take your mother to the doctor, your kid to the doctor, your dog to the vet, stay home, get a baby, whatever it was.
12 weeks.
And I said, folks, when the liberals come up with plans like this, this is not a solution, and this is just step one.
Because it isn't going to be long before liberals realize, and they've factored this in any way, that 12 weeks off without being paid is worthless.
Who can take 12 weeks off without pay?
Can't do it.
I said, mark my words.
Before long, this is going to become 12 weeks paid family medical leave.
And the employer is going to have to pay it.
And the employer is going to have to pay somebody else to do the job that you're not doing when you're not there.
And the employer is not going to have anything to do about it except fire people because there's only so much of a labor budget at many of these small businesses.
Well, well, well.
Holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers a story from the Christian Science Monitor of a couple days ago.
The state of Massachusetts considering a landmark proposal that would give workers the nation's most generous paid leave policy.
The bill would make employers pay their workers on leave their full salary, up to $750 a week, for up to 12 weeks to care for newborns or ill family members.
The proposal, however, is no liberal anomaly.
26 other states considered some form of paid leave in their 2005 legislative sessions.
California's 2004 program, currently the nation's most comprehensive.
Experts say that the issue is gaining traction because it attempts to ease the difficulty that many Americans face trying to balance work and family.
A Harvard University report published in 2004 showed that of 168 countries studied, the U.S. is just one of just five that don't offer some form of paid leave to women in connection with childbirth.
Yeah, and take a look at our economy.
Observers, not experts here, but observers.
I just love this journalism jargon.
Observers say the bill in Massachusetts could unite conservatives and liberals around the issue of family values.
Gary Chason, professor of labor relations at Clark University in Worcester, said both liberals and conservatives recognize the reality of the situation, but they have to make it seem like it's reflecting a new reality without making it seem like they've become France.
Well, you can try to act all you want, but that's exactly what this is.
It's just going to continue.
12 weeks is going to become 15.
15 is going to become 20.
The threshold or the ceiling on $750 per week will go up to $1,000 at some point.
Once this stuff gets codified into law, there's no stopping it.
It is just, it's patently ridiculous.
Now, I've often said on this program, I don't want to come across as an old fuddy-duddy, and I'm not being one here.
I just have a historical perspective that precedes my birth.
And I think back to this country in the 40s and the 50s, and we have real challenges out there.
And there wasn't any of this kind of garbage going to help people deal with the pressures of balancing family and work.
And families held together.
Divorce rate wasn't nearly as high as it is.
There was a lot less social upheaval.
The family unit was a far stronger unit than it is today.
But look at the way we define families.
You can call yourself and your two dogs a family if you want to.
And there's some wacko that'll come along and support your right to do it.
A family can be two dads and three kids, two mommies and four kids, a mommy and two daddies and two kids and a dog can be a family.
I mean, it's absurd.
And we've invented all these stresses, and now 12 weeks off, and we would go comparing ourselves to the rest of the world.
Yeah, that's what we want to do, compare ourselves to France.
Say, France has it all over us in a number of areas.
It's just, it's just absurd.
Well, Rush, what do you have against this?
Well, what I have against this is that the government is mandating this, telling businesses how they must be run.
It doesn't make any sense.
And what also irritates me, I knew we were headed here 1993 when this first happened.
And all it's doing is growing government.
It's putting government more in charge of how businesses operate and how families live their lives.
And it is subtracting from responsibility.
And that's one of the things that's the big buga move.
People are looking to shift responsibility to other people for things they take on.
All right.
You want to have a baby?
Can you afford it?
You want to have a baby?
You have a family?
Can you afford it?
And do you have the time?
Are you going to make the commitment to it?
Or are you going to require your boss to pay you to do it?
You're going to require the government to make your boss pay you to do it.
People want to do all these things and then take no accountability for them, have no responsibility.
Yeah, I had a beanie.
You guys think I couldn't do it in my bad boss?
He fired me just because I want to go get my baby's teeth pulled or something.
These things, you know, they didn't happen like this in the past.
And the country was not in bad shape at the time.
It was, we're just, I don't know.
Some of this is just, it, to me, equals we're getting soft.
And demanding that others have some duty to assume our responsibilities and the commitments that we make.
Quick time out.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with us.
That's exactly what we do here.
We break it down.
We make the complex understandable and have fun at the same time.
Rush Limbaugh with a unique presentation in modern American media.
Serious discussion of the issues combined with irreverent humor, all oriented toward making a serious point.
800-282-2882.
Now, speaking of school and family medical leave and all, look at this.
This is Associated Press Education Writers.
Some screws are leaving recess behind.
One sure way to get parents exercised is to take away recess.
The proportion of schools that don't have recess ranges from 7% for first and second grades to 13% by sixth grade, according to new government figures.
If you put that in perspective, the overwhelming majority of elementary schools still offer recess every day, usually for about 25 minutes.
Most children get one recess a day, if not two or three.
But what troubles parents, though, is in a sense that recess is under siege so much that the Cartoon Network and a national PTA have launched a rescuing recess campaign.
Kids are leading the huge letter writing effort to scroll officials with one theme, let us play.
Remember, we had a story last week or the week before.
These kids are actually out there marching, carrying signs and demanding recess.
Like they have rights.
I mean, who do they think they are?
They're kids.
The inmates want to run the asylum.
However, why in the world, why do you think there's recess in the first place?
Why?
Then don't give me this physical education business.
That's right.
If you don't let, I mean, you were talking first through sixth grade and so forth.
If you don't let those kids out of that classroom, they're going to be climbing the walls.
But not anymore because we give them Ritalin.
Because when kids act like kids, we drug them up.
And so we don't need recess anymore.
They're just sitting there like zombies.
Yeah, we have a normal little kid, very hyperkinetic, very energetic, running rings around the parents, doesn't do well in school because he's probably bored silly with it.
And parents, oh my God, my kid's in trouble.
He won't mind me.
And we created a disorder, ADD.
And I know, I know lots of you believe in it.
You're free to.
But you can't, you cannot fool me.
The fact that we're taking away recess at the same time we're increasing the number of kids that take Ritalin means that they don't need it.
They don't have all this energy to burn off because it's not there.
Here we go back to the...
Oh, Mrs. Clinton, by the way, just got a note from our buddies at Newsmax.
Mrs. Clinton sent out a special Mother's Day email advocating full pay, Family Medical Leave Act nationwide.
I'm so proud that the first bill my husband signed when he became president was the Family Medical Leave Act, which had actually been vetoed twice by the previous president.
Nearly half of private workers have no paid sick days for themselves, she said.
Get ready.
Get ready, small business.
Is it any wonder that small businesses want to hire illegals?
Is it any wonder that a lot of businesses want to hire illegals?
Get around all this silly, worthless, punitive regulation.
There's a lot of things wrong, folks, and they're all coming to a head of steam here.
And this is going to make it easy to see why certain things are happening and why certain problems exist.
Eric in Sacramento, my adopted hometown.
Welcome, sir, to the program.
Hey, thanks, Rush.
I just want to say hi to my wife, Melanie, real quick, and the Hans family for turning me on to your show.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
And I just wanted to say I took the test in school for the X exam.
It basically was what it was called back in 1990.
You had to take three tests.
You took one for English, one you had to write like a paragraph, and the other one was a math test.
Well, I failed the math test once.
And I know guys who had failed the math test two, three, four times, and they were able to take it.
And I went to my teacher and said, hey, you know, this math test, I'm having problems with it.
What can I do?
She said, well, you stay after school with me.
I'll look at the test itself.
I'll find some type of math equations and we'll go over it together.
We did that, and I passed the test, and I think I missed one.
It's not that hard.
I don't understand why these kids can't take the test.
What are they going to do when they get in the workforce when they have to take a test to get a job?
Well, that's the point.
If they're not being made to take the test, and if it is the requirement, well, hey, we've got laws against people coming here illegally.
We're not enforcing those either.
Why should we enforce the exit test?
Exactly.
I mean, you see where this is headed.
Yeah, no, you're exactly right.
What you're illustrating is, okay, you failed it.
You found out what you had to do to pass it.
You went out with a teacher.
You worked hard.
You overcame it.
You fixed it.
And you learned.
And you achieved something.
And you overcame an obstacle.
It let you know you could do it.
And a teacher working with you helped you out and probably gave you a start that you might not have been able to start yourself, light a fire, what have you.
So, yeah, with his judge out there, he tells these kids, you don't need to take this stupid test.
This stupid test is crazy.
He's denying them the opportunity to achieve, denying them the opportunity to accomplish something.
I'm going to tell you something, folks.
When you deny that to young people, when you take away the opportunity or the challenge, however you want to look at it, to achieve and accomplish something, you're robbing people.
You're robbing these kids, and you're instead inculcating them with the idea the system can be gamed.
If you just, you know, get a number of adults to feel sorry for you.
Dan in Mansfield, Ohio.
Welcome to the program.
You're next.
Hey, Rush.
Hey.
Mega Dittos.
Thank you.
Hey, I just want to say that that California judge dovetails perfectly with what Congress is doing regarding the illegal aliens.
No one has ever held to a standard where you have to follow the law.
Congress isn't enforcing their laws.
Why should the schools enforce theirs?
Yeah, at this point.
I mean, that's that's I'm sorry, I just kind of stole your thunder because I just made that same point.
Why, previous callers questioned, why should these kids be made to take the test when they see other such standards being denied and others getting away with gaming the system?
Why shouldn't they be able to?
And then, you know, law authority, it all disintegrates and very bad life lessons are taught and probably learned.
Paul in Birmingham, Alabama, you're next.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Yes, I just want to make a comment about the family medical leave.
Yes.
I think it also stifles competition between different companies.
If I'm willing to offer somebody 12 weeks or five weeks of leave and someone has a baby and someone else doesn't, that better worker may want to come to work for me.
Yeah, but you're not going to have any choice in this if this manifests itself.
You're going to be told by government you have to do it and every business has to do it.
Well, that's why I disagree with what the government's going to do.
It's a total small business owner that I might have an advantage over somebody because I can offer them better benefits somewhat for me if there's that good of work.
Well, I understand your cell phones breaking up out there, but that's exactly a good point.
It's a good because employers do compete for the best people.
However, as an employer, and I am one, and I interview people, if I ever hear, if the prospective employee, within the first 20 minutes, starts asking how much time off he gets, I don't tell him at that point, but his goose is cooked.
If he comes in the door, I'm not, I may be violating a law by saying this.
No way.
I'm not going to get stuck with this.
I'm not going to take the rap for this.
Let them come get me.
I'm just telling you: if somebody comes in and says, within the first 20 minutes, wants to know what the vacation schedule is, what the sick schedule is, what the family medical leave policy is, what the overtime schedule is, I mean, they have cooked their goose.
They don't know.
I smile and I answer the question and so forth, but their history.
They will never be brought back for a second interview.
But the same token, by the same, I mean, I understand offering benefits and so forth, but when you start offering time off benefits that you're going to pay for, I don't know that you are attracting the best people.
Really, you want to go out and say, okay, look, I have a job done, and I need a job that needs to be done, and it's a very important job.
And in order to get you, I'll give you 12 weeks paid every year not to do that job.
Doesn't make sense to me.
As somebody who's, you can negotiate benefits packages with employees, but when the package includes paid time off, when the government's not mandating it.
I mean, anybody can run their business the way they want.
I'm just saying, if you want to go out and attract people who are going to choose the gig because how much time they're going to get off while being paid, I'm not sure you're actually getting the best employee.
No, it's nerdly.
You don't know what you're talking about in there.
You just don't.
Jim in Austin, Texas.
Welcome to the program.
Thanks for taking my call, Rush.
Anytime.
Jim, call us anytime.
My comment to you, and I'm taking a big risk here, is I don't think the wall is going to work at all.
I think it's a dumb idea, and I think that supply, economic supply and demand have to govern this problem.
And I'll talk about either issue you want.
Well, why would it be taking a big risk to tell me that?
Well, Rush, I think you're brilliant, and I've been a follower of yours for a long time.
So not to get skewered here.
Well, no, no, but you shouldn't feel.
It's not risky to call here and disagree with me.
It's really not.
You're not an employee.
So you're just a guest.
Now, the fence.
I'll tell you, the Israelis have built a fence that's working.
Well, no, it's not.
Rush, there's people sneaking bombs into the Israeli, into their territory.
Historically, Rush, if you look at walls, you start with Hadrian's Wall, the Great Wall of China, the Maginot Line, Hitler's Atlantic Wall.
They never work.
You've got, wait, here's what you've got, is you've got an economic attractor in this country, which is low-paying jobs.
And in this country, our good old United States, we need those people.
Yeah.
I don't hear that.
Here we go.
Rush, let me tell you something.
I love you guys.
Let me tell you.
The argument's going full circle.
Now we're back to the jobs Americans won't do.
No, I'm not.
I don't hear anybody saying, yes, I want to pay another dollar a pound for broccoli.
And yes, I want my building costs to go up.
And yes, I want to pay more money at the restaurants.
I don't hear people saying that.
But when you shut down all of this economic incentive for all these lower-paying jobs and you push the cost of this labor up, those are the first people who are going to be screaming at Congress saying, do something about the price of strawberries.
You know, this is interesting.
We had this argument a month or two ago, and now we're getting close to a break.
And I'm tempted to recycle it.
You know, we used to have problems.
I forget in California, I forget the fruit or the vegetable, but the people came along and said, well, we're not going to pick these tomatoes or whatever it was for this price.
We're not going to do it.
And the people that own the farm said, all right, screw you.
And they went out and invented a machine that does it.
And so there's no need for any labor at all to go pick.
So that's a possibility, too.
But what you're saying is, is exactly what the Mexicans say.
What you're saying is that we need a permanent, low-paid, uneducated underclass in order to have prosperity in the country.
And if that were the case, Mexico would be running rings around us economically.
I never said that we needed permanent underclass Russia.
Yeah, you are, because if we have expectations of 29 cent ahead lettuce or whatever it costs, hell, I don't know.
I don't buy it myself.
But I know it's cheap compared to what it would be if it weren't being picked by day laborers and so forth.
Bottom line is that's going to always be there.
If that's your argument for these people, we're always going to want low food prices.
Always going to need somebody to do that work for sub-normal wage.
So it's a permanent underclass.
It may be different people because those people will graduate to hire jobs or whatever if they work out, but we're going to need a constant inflow of uneducated people to do that work.
So it's a permanent underclass.
Rush, if you look at the history of this country, we have had wave after wave of immigrants coming into this country to take jobs that nobody else wanted.
And they came here and they made a life and they established themselves.
I mean, look at the Irish and the Scottish influx.
Yeah, but this is, Jim, I really, I wish I'd have gotten to your call earlier because I have to go because of time constraints here.
But that's not, we're not even talking about immigration here.
These people are not immigrating.
They're coming here for work.
They're sending the money home.
They're going to leave.
5% of the workforce, Jim, is made up of these people.
And you're making it sound like more than 50% of the workforce is made up of these people.
It's not the case.
The idea that we can't get by with 5% of the workforce is just an illusion that people are putting out there.
I got to run, though.
I appreciate the call.
Back in just a moment.
Another drive-by media hit falling apart, folks.
As we told you yesterday, Bell South said that it gave the National Security Agency no records of phone calls.
And now Verizon Communications says that it didn't give the government records of millions of phone calls joining Bell South in disputing key assertions in a USA Today drive-by media hit piece.
The denials open the possibility that the NSA requested customer calling data from long-distance companies like ATT, Sprint, and MCI in 2001, but not from companies that were mainly local phone companies like Verizon.
Verizon has not provided customer call data to the NSA, nor had it been asked to do so, the company said.
One of the most glaring and repeated falsehoods in the media reporting is the assertion that in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, Verizon was approached by NSA and entered into an arrangement to provide the NSA with data from its customer domestic calls.
We didn't do that.
Now, the media, though, still holding out hope.
Get this next line.
Verizon's denial did not apply to MCI, which Verizon acquired in January of this year.
In an earlier statement, Verizon said it's in the process of ensuring that its policies are put in place in the former MCI business.
Now, sources told us that Bell South and Verizon records are included in the database, said USA Today spokesman.
We're confident in our coverage of the phone database story, said the spokesman, but we won't summarily dismiss Bell South's and Verizon's denials without taking a closer look.
Well, you arrogant SOB, they're denying it, and you're saying, well, we're confident of our coverage.
We're not going to summarily dismiss these denials without taking a closer look.
Closer looks what you're supposed to do before you publish your rotgut drive-by hit piece.
Now, don't you find it interesting that now they're looking at long-distance carriers who might have supplied the records.
Well, if that's the case, it's going to blow up this whole notion of domestic spying, isn't it?
Because it would be long-distance records that would contain data of incoming and outgoing foreign phone calls from potential al-Qaeda and terrorist suspects, which is what the administration has insisted the purpose of this program is all about.
So it just borders on irresponsibility.
I've got a story.
I'm not going to have time to get to it.
Times are tough for news media, but journalism schools are still booming.
And it's got the average quotes from the students.
Yes, I want to make a difference.
I want to make the world a better place.
This is a calling.
You know, it doesn't matter whatever newspaper you go to.
It's the same thing.
We point this out all the time.
Television network, newspaper, liberal, liberal, liberal.
It does not reflect what's happening elsewhere in the culture.
This stuff has to be being taught in journalism schools.
There's a culture of liberalism being taught in journalism schools.
These kids come out of there and they get shaped, flaked, and formed by that.
For an industry supposed to be responsive, they are so out of touch with the direction and the culture of this country, it's striking.
Back in just second.
Another exciting excursion into and fun excursion into broadcast excellence now concludes, ladies and gentlemen.
The program never ends.
We just take a 21-hour break here and be back and rev it all up again at that time.
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