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May 22, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:14
May 22, 2006, Monday, Hour #3
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Hi, how are you?
Welcome back, folks.
Your tune of the most listened to radio talk show in America is a good reason for that.
It's the best one.
The Rush Limbaugh program and the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Taking your calls today at 800-282-288-2, email address rush at EIB net.com.
Back to the first hour of this program today.
A little over two hours ago, about two hours ago, I said, quoted Bill Clinton saying that global warming is a bigger threat to the future than terrorism is.
And I found that quite interesting because he's he's he's he's he's paralleling Al Gore.
Algore's out there trying to make that same case, and uh there's a lot of rumblings out there that Al Gore is gonna get back into the Democratic presidential sweepstakes, made a lot of money as a director of Google, lots of stocks, sold some stock, maybe 50, 60 million dollars worth, and as such uh has enough money to sink into a campaign.
Another story out there, Hollywood all excited about the possibility.
So what is the potential first man, Bill Clinton doing, parroting, and thereby uh promoting and supporting a policy that's uh uh gonna be the linchpin of any candidacy of Al Gore.
And then I made the observation.
If global warming is that big a threat, then why didn't he go after global warming with the Kyoto Protocol?
Why didn't he try to sell everybody in this country on it?
Why didn't he try to sell his own party on it?
And then I said, I'll bet you if we do a Nexus search, we will be able to find uh Bill Clinton saying that terrorism is a bigger threat to the future than anything else out there.
And lo and behold, ladies and gentlemen, after two hours of exhausting research on the Nexus database.
We have a story from January 1, 2000 in the Buffalo News.
And the headline of the story, we must formulate plan to deal with terrorists.
I guess that this is uh an editorial.
And let me just read to you this paragraph.
The U.S. government has strongly condemned the hijacking and the holding of passengers as hostage.
Remember, this is 2000, just before 9-11.
The U.S. government strongly condemned the hijacking and the holding of passengers as hostages.
President Clinton has warned that the greatest threat to the free world in the new millennium will come from international terrorism.
This ordeal once again emphasizes the U.S. and India must forge closer ties on every level.
So there you have it.
Bill Clinton has said that the greatest threat to the free world in the new millennium, and that's what we're in now, for those of you in uh Rio Linda, will come from international terrorism.
Now, six years later, Bill Clinton says the greatest threat is uh global warming, even bigger than international terrorism.
Typical Clinton politics.
I hate to say this, folks, but Jimmy Carter has a piece today.
John Fund writing about Jimmy Carter in the opinionjournal.com website.
Uh, and his headline, Jimmy Carter's right, amend the immigration bill to require voters to show ID.
Do you know when you poll this issue, and I know what we say about polls here, and I I'm dubious of them all, but this one doesn't surprise me.
Seven percent of the American people that's it.
Seven percent of the American people think it's okay to not have photo ID when you vote.
Only seven percent.
Yet the Democratic Party is steadfastly against it.
They say it's racist.
They say it is discriminatory, because some of their voters are afraid to go get their photos taken for fear that their picture may be on a wall in a post office, or for fear that they're they're gonna be spied on or some such thing.
Democrats admitting that many of their voters are just fools, idiots.
Just plain stupid.
But we still can't discriminate against them.
Jimmy Carter's out there saying, no, of course, Jimmy Carter knows this stuff, folks, because he monitors elections nationwide.
And I mean worldwide.
So occasionally these people get something right, and when they do, you have to you have to call attention to it.
Now, uh I want to go back to Lindsey Graham.
Can you grab cut eight?
Here's Lindsey Graham being asked by Tim Russert yesterday.
Um this is sort of uh debating the future of the Republican Party, isn't it?
This immigration bill.
I mean, you believe that states like swing states could go democratic if Hispanic voters are angry at the Republicans.
Yes, I believe it's steeper than that.
I believe that we've got a fast growing demographic.
I want to send the right signal to one, you're welcome to be part of this party.
You're welcome to be in America under conditions that make sense, and you have to earn your way to become a citizen over eleven years.
It's not about the next election.
What Republicans need to get away from is fear of the next election and do things that are good for the country down the road.
Okay, the Washington Post has a story today.
And by the way, uh back to Bill Clinton for just a second.
What happened to AIDS?
I mean, I thought AIDS was the greatest threat we faced.
And in fact, I thought Clinton recently said obesity was the biggest threat we faced.
Childhood obesity.
We gotta get soft drinks out of the screws.
I mean, the guy is playing whatever string on the guitar he can strum, no pun intended.
And now he's supporting Al Gore in this global warming sham.
Uh I find it fascinating.
I I'm you know, there's a school of thought out there that that uh believes Bill does not want Hillary to become president.
Uh he wants that uh historical legacy re reserved for uh just him.
And there's and I know it's just idle speculation because it's who these people are.
Um the the Clintons are, that the people speculating that Bill would actually at the right time sabotage Hillary's campaign.
Uh and and I tell you it's weird when he on the uh this is the week at Al Gore's idiotic uh movie comes out on global warming, and here's Clinton for all intents and purposes endorsing the whole concept.
Anyway, this Washington Post poll, you just heard Lindsay Graham say, yep, well, we got to stop worrying about the next election, but there's a new demographic out there, and we gotta tell them that they're welcome in this party.
Well, we we see how the Senate has been trying to do it, and we see how the administration, frankly, has been trying to show Hispanics that we Republicans, we embrace you.
We want you in our party.
So Hispanic voters, many of whom responded favorably to President Bush's campaign appeals, emphasizing patriotism, family, and uh religious values in Spanish language media in 2004 are turning away from the administration on immigration and a host of other issues, according to a new survey.
Same time separate polls show that conservative white Republicans are the voting group most hostile to the administration's support for policies that would move toward the legalization of many undocumented immigrants.
They had to go gum it up with this.
We're back.
This is racism and xenophobia at the heart of the immigration or the anti-ill uh uh uh illegal immigrant uh debate.
It's just preposterous.
Cumulatively, the post says the data underscore the perils for Bush and his party in the immigration debate churning on Capitol Hill, one that threatens to bleed away support simultaneously from the Republican base and from Hispanic swing voters whom Bush strategists had hoped to make an important new part of the GOP coalition.
A survey of 800 registered Hispanic voters conducted May 11th through 15th by the nonpartisan Latino Coalition.
Now I see nonpartisan in there.
I don't care who they are.
I immediately the red flags go up.
A nonpartisan polling unit, right, called the Latino Coalition.
Why would you have why would you be nonpartisan if you're gonna form the Latino coalition?
That's like saying we're a bunch of Latinos and we got the Latino coalition, but we don't care about anything.
And that didn't say bipartisan, which means we got pro and con, you know, up and down, left and right, uh, forwards, backwards, whatever in our group.
No, they said nonpartisan.
So when I see that, it's almost a disqualifier because I don't think there's such a thing uh nonpartisan in issues such as this, among people that are paying attention and and and have a stake.
But nevertheless, here are the results.
800 registered Hispanic voters, May 11th through 15th, show that Democrats were viewed as better able to handle immigration issues than Republicans by nearly three to one.
50 percent to 17 percent.
Pitting the Democrats against Bush on immigration issues produced a two-to-one Democrat advantage.
Forty-five to twenty-two.
The poll findings indicate that the Republicans are likely to have a hard time replicating Bush's 2004 performance among Latino voters, according to 2004 exit polls, Bush received the backing of 40 percent of Hispanic voters uh from 34 percent in uh in 2000.
So it looks like the immigration plan that is identified with the president and the Republicans in the Senate is not working its magic.
And yeah, just from a political standpoint.
I had to wonder what what you know this is a big risk for the president to take to go out and do this immigration speech here in this election year that that Monday, a week ago tonight, and and really just focus everybody's attention on the issue.
Call attention to it, and then all of this bro ha and fighting that's going on, people paying much closer attention to it uh than they otherwise would have.
And I thought the, you know, the risks are far greater on the downside of this thing than they are on the upside, and it looks like that's uh the case.
So not only is it not working with the uh uh persuasion of moderate Hispanics or others to join the Republican Party, it appears to be hurting the Republican base support for the President and the Republican Party as well, which we all know.
Back in just a second.
Mambo number five.
What was this guy's name?
Oh, that's right, Lou Bega.
That's right, Mambo number five.
We are back.
All right, one more uh one more immigration story, folks, and we'll on to uh other things in your phone calls.
Among those uh who will be cleared of past crimes under the Senate's proposed immigration reform bill would be the bidnesses that have employed the estimated ten million illegal aliens eligible for citizenship, and that provided the very magnet that drew them here in the first place.
Buried in the more than six hundred pages of legislation is a section that is titled Employer Protections.
And it says this quote, employers of aliens applying for adjustment of status under this section shall not be subject to civil and criminal tax liability relating directly to the employment of such alien.
Lawyers for the Senate Judiciary Committee have scoured the bill.
They've come up with a list of thirty-one crimes relating to illegal immigration that would be wiped clean under current law.
Simply entering the country illegally can result in a six-month prison stay and a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar fine.
Aiding in that crime carries a similar fine and a five-year prison sentence.
Once ordered deported and illegal racks up five hundred dollars per day of continued illegal presence.
That's the law currently on the books.
That Lindsey Graham says, Well, it's that's an unjust law.
These are nonviolent crimes.
Enforcing that law doesn't make any sense.
In addition, there are the perjury and false statements associated with uh fraudulently filling out federal tax forms.
Each instance carries up to a five-year prison sentence and a 250,000 dollar fine.
Then there's the wide array of crimes relating to forging false documents needed to obtain work.
Punishment for those crimes range from civil fines to 25 years in the big house.
Also, there are crimes relating to the misuse of social security numbers to obtain work.
Those crimes can result in five years in prison and a 250,000 dollar fine.
And I I have to ask how many people uh have been fined something and have served some jail time when they've been caught doing it.
Businesses that have committed any alien hiring crimes would be forgiven under the provisions of the bill, although the laws would remain on the books, and thus future violations could be prosecuted.
For what purpose?
So, and folks, this is not amnesty now.
Do not confuse yourselves.
This is not amnesty.
We're we're gonna leave the laws on the books.
But for the current crop that's here and the current crop of businesses that have acted as the magnet, the story says, we're just gonna pretend the law doesn't apply.
Has it applied for the last well, since Simpson was only 20 years, but but but we're gonna keep that law in the books.
We're gonna be tough on our on our on our immigration uh problem.
Just it's just absurd.
It is inexplicable, and it gets more so each and every day.
Ian in Provo Utah, welcome, sir.
I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thanks, Rush.
Greetings from Provo.
Thank you.
Hey, I mentioned to your uh screener that uh, you know, a lot of this immigration stuff is kind of irksome to me just because I'm actually first generation American.
And I mentioned maybe it doesn't apply to me because I'm actually the son of immigrant wasps.
You know, my parents were born and bred in England and came here in early 1960s and born and bred where?
In England.
England.
And uh they were, you know, green card carrying uh people until the day they died two years ago.
And uh, you know, this whole thing about giving the illegal social security status is just incredible.
And I thought in my wicked little mind as I was waiting to talk to you, maybe the uh the Senate can pacify people like me by maybe giving me my parents Social Security that they would have earned over the next several years of their life to help, you know, restore the dignity to their legally coming into this country.
I mean, it's a pie in the sky, not gonna happen.
Well, obviously, but you know, you know, they're playing the game, uh, they're playing with the money, they're playing with the votes.
Why not just add some more to it?
Uh well, I mean, these guys have to practice restraint somewhere.
Yeah.
And and and and the restraint that they're practicing is on legals.
Yeah.
The other thing I mentioned to your screen was uh John McCain was actually in Utah uh a week or so ago at our state uh party convention, of which I was a delegate to.
And uh he didn't say anything, it was just, you know, the usual uh, you know, his Vietnam era uh service in the military.
But uh I was telling you screener, I can I can almost guarantee you that if he had said the comments that you had mentioned earlier uh in that convention, he may not have gotten booed, but I bet you would have been dead quiet if not a lot of d jaws dropping to the ground had he said those uh those comments that you had mentioned earlier.
So it's just kind of amazing uh that I know I see that's that's a great point because uh the these guys can say these things in Washington on the floor of the Senate, have it reported by the drive by media.
But it's a lot different going out looking people in the face and saying this.
Um it's easier to go on a Sunday show and say it than it is to go out to a uh you know personal appearance and say it.
So McCain's been in the news for other things too.
He went, he did his commencement address at the new school.
The new school's here in New York, and the new school's uh what are the the the commandant of the new school is uh Bob Carey, former senator from Nebraska.
And uh I mean these I mean McCain was was was it was booed and he was they couldn't couldn't believe he was there.
He supported Bush on the war in Iraq and so forth, and McCain basically said the same thing to them that he said down at Liberty University when he went out of Falwell's group and did the commencement speech there, and he said, keep speaking for what you believe.
We need the debate in this country.
Go ahead and keep speaking.
I when I was in your shoes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So, you know, he's uh he he's back to you know, trying to maneuver in the center and regain Maverick status.
And uh I love this uh the right to debate.
I mean, I I think uh we get caught up here in the um uh in this in the uh the romance of this notion of dissent.
But somebody's right and somebody's wrong.
In in most debates, somebody's right, somebody is wrong.
And and at some point was somebody would stand up and say, say whatever you want, but I'm gonna tell you you are flat wrong.
And here's why you're flat wrong.
Instead of go ahead and speak, speak and speak loud.
I mean, we don't have to speak.
Well, P do.
I mean, it it's it's meaningless platitudes.
Here's a one the the one guy in this country, along with his buddy Feingold, who's actually, you know, cut a little uh little uh uh uh uh portion of the First Amendment out with McCain Feingold now talking.
You keep talking.
I love dissent.
That what McCain what what McCain knows is that they can't put it in an ad 30 days or sixty days before election, but they can say all they want when he's at the commencement speech hall uh and all this.
But I mean somebody's right and somebody's wrong.
I mean, you I we you all have a right to be wrong.
We all have a right to be right.
We don't have a right to be heard, however.
We have a right to speak, but nobody has to listen to us.
That has to be uh earned.
Uh but I mean the the idea here that that uh uh you can continue along with this and you don't tell people they're wrong when you know they are or think they are, in order not to offend them or bother them or what have you, doesn't seem to advance anything to me, particularly if you happen to stand.
If if if McCain really believes in the Iraq War, really believes in supporting it, then stand there and tell them why.
Um and tell them why they're wrong and what they misunderstand it, because I'll say that the opponents of the Iraq War are so kooky, none of what they believe about it is actually true.
Somebody ought to just tell them this.
Other than me.
That's right, my friends.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have El Rushball, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all feeling, all concerned, uh, all everything, Maha Rushi, here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
A case that we have been following, a story we've been following since five days after the floods in New Orleans brought on by Hurricane Katrina, the saga of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
We first encountered Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, when he commandeered escape vehicles being manned by U.S. military personnel.
They drove him to his front door in his house, a fashionable neighborhood of New Orleans, where the uh the water was up to the third step of his front stoop.
They delivered him right to that third step so the Congressman wouldn't get wet.
He walked in the house, he was in there for about an hour.
He came back.
This is while rescue operations were still in full uh full-fledged activity uh throughout the New Orleans and uh Mississippi areas.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, inside his home for about an hour, came out with uh a number of items, including something about the size of a microwave oven or a small refrigerator.
In the time that he arrived at his fashionable uh home uh in New Orleans, the original rescue vehicle got stuck.
It waited so long out there, it sunk in the muck underneath the surface of the water.
This necessitated calling a rescue vehicle to rescue Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, because the original vehicle was stuck and couldn't get out.
This took uh more personnel and another vehicle out of out of rescue service.
We since learned that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, has been accused of taking bribes for the purposes of setting his family and himself up for untold riches working on telephone deals in Nigeria or some such African country.
Uh Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, uh, has denied all charges.
Well, now there's a new development out there, folks.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, was caught on video tape, accepting 100,000 in 100 bills from an FBI informant whose conversations with Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, also were recorded, according to a court document released Sunday.
Agents later found the cash hidden in his freezer.
Hard cold cash.
People are now wondering if this is the same cash that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, asked rescue personnel to take him to his fashionable home in New Orleans five days after Hurricane Katrina to get.
Is it that that he removed from his house along with uh other items?
At one audio tape meeting, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, chuckles about writing in code to keep secret what the government contends was his corrupt role in getting his children a cut of a communications company's deal for work in Africa.
Uh as Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, and the informant passed notes about what percentage the lawmakers' family might get.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, began laughing and said, all these damn notes we're writing to each other as if we're talking as if the FBI is watching.
This, according to the affidavit.
Jefferson, who represents New Orleans, has not been charged, and he denies any wrongdoing, and he's not going to plead guilty to something he didn't do.
And the facts of this, he says, have been terribly, terribly misreported and uh are out of context.
As for the 100,000, uh, the government says that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, got the money in a leather briefcase last July 30th at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Arlington.
The plan was for Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, to use the cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official.
The name is blacked out in the court document to ensure the success of a business deal in that country.
All but $10,000 was recovered on August 3rd when the FBI searched the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, in Washington.
They searched his Washington home.
The money was stuffed in his freezer, wrapped in $10,000 packs and concealed in food containers and aluminum foil.
So that's the latest on the saga of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
Here is John in St. Louis.
John, I'm glad you called.
Welcome.
Nice to have you with us.
Hey, it's great to be here.
Thank you.
An honor to talk to you, and I hope you're having a great afternoon.
Thank you, sir.
Will.
You were discussing uh the DNC's uh operations against Negan in New Orleans in his last uh election to Saturday.
That's uh true.
And uh well, you know, I I I I saw that report too on the Drudge Report.
He doesn't, he just sources, you know.
I mean, it's not really he's not linking to anything, it's just seems like a rumor, kind of a drive-by kind of uh move here on his part.
Very clever, John.
But uh it is what it is.
And uh but you know, uh uh Negan is kind of a lukewarm Democrat at best, and he's kind of new to the party, and he's had some uh flirtations with the Republican Party.
He supported uh Gendal against uh Blanco.
Right.
And uh he uh endorsed Bush in 2000.
And he didn't come out in uh 04 for Kerry until after the uh the uh convention.
Yeah, but he still came out for him.
Yeah, okay.
But I'm just saying, okay, yeah.
And as far as we know, the DNC is supporting him, you know, in his in his race.
But you describe uh nefarious actions on their part when it's not necessarily confirmed.
And even if it were, he does have uh uh uh uh not such a great past.
Well, okay, so so uh what what you're saying is that even if this drive-by report on Drudge is true, Negan still had it coming.
Well, I'm not even saying that.
I'm just saying it it's politics.
And I think that if the RNC had a candidate in a state that uh uh gave money to uh Democrats or endorsed Democrats, I don't think Ken Melman would get on his plane and fly over and help him either.
I mean that's what's fair is fair, it's politics.
I can name one for you, uh Arlen Spector.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Uh you don't he doesn't need to give money to Democrats.
He might, but I mean he's he supports but look, the the point is the the what's interesting to me about this is that you you uh you have the report.
If there was a report on a blog, John, an absolute bogus report on a blog that said Carl Rolfe had been an indicted secretly and privately two Fridays ago.
Thirty-five drive-by media reporters called Rove's lawyer asking for comment.
Is it true?
Here we have a report on the Drudge Report that Negan was dissed by the DNC, that they wanted Mitch Landrew to win, and we know why.
And there's no curiosity about this.
None.
In fact, if there's any curiosity at all, so well, you know, Nagan, he's uh turncoat, voted supported Jindal, he acted leaned Republican in a couple ways, endorsed Bush in 2000.
No big deal of DNC wouldn't support him.
But the point is he's black.
New Orleans is a chocolate city, and New Orleans uh uh is is a city that the Democrats desperately want to hold and so forth, and Negan's victory came from white voters, and the Democrats are out there, they're they're trying to hold this uh city under their control so that so that and Negan still is a Democrat, regardless.
I mean, even it was uh uh even if he has flirted with uh supporting some Republicans, all I'm saying to you is if the situation had been reversed, and if it were the RNC, which had dissed a black candidate and sought to undermine him, even a Republican, uh over over a preferring a white guy, you would have not heard the end of it.
It would be the focus of the news today, tomorrow, and the next day, and be wondering if Pat Robertson had a role in it.
You never know why they come up with all these various angles.
There's not a shred.
There's not an ounce of curiosity that we can detect by drive-by media reports over what's on the Drudge Report.
And yet this blog that got this rove BS started has nowhere near the credit.
I mean, it has no credibility.
To compare it to any other websites, absolutely absurd.
Who's next on this program?
Mike in Miami.
Welcome to the program, sir.
You are next.
Mega alligator biting ditto from Miami.
Thank you, sir.
Pleasure to talk to you.
You bet.
I might talk about the math involved.
Wait a second, wait a second.
Did you say alligator biting or fighting?
Fighting, fighting.
I'm in the Everglades.
Oh, the alligators.
You're not biting alligator.
No.
But my question revolves around the math that's uh involved in all of this.
Um my question was how many new uh naturalization and citizenship agents are being added in this legislation to process the twelve to twenty million uh applications that are going to come in from illegal, in addition to the millions of legal residents that are going to be needed to process it, but there's this new card that's up there.
Fabulous question.
We asked that question when we first heard months ago or weeks ago, maybe a couple of months, this particular compromise bill.
The first question we asked, go out there now to one of these naturalization centers and it and and see how smoothly it operates.
It's like the DMV, only worse.
Can you imagine where we're gonna get the people to process all of a sudden these 11 to 12 because remember what they had to do?
They have turned themselves in.
They have to admit where they've been here under two years or longer than two years, longer than five, they got to stay under two, they gotta go.
They gotta come in, they've got to admit to that.
They got to ad they gotta pay the fine, they got to promise to go to English school.
Uh uh who's gonna come if if they don't come in and admit it, and how many of them are gonna think it's a trick in the first place?
If they don't come in and admit it, who's gonna go out there and find them?
Yeah, we got that's an excellent question because with no enforcement mechanism and even no enforcement of uh the provisions in this new law, uh what what good is any of it?
And as as uh Vice President Graham said, uh the law is uh this nonviolent uh crime, uh that's not hurting anybody.
Uh if it's an unjust result, and uh the law is you know, it's it doesn't deserve to be enforced or followed of this sort of thing.
But no, that's an excellent point.
Where we're gonna get the additional bureaucrats, maybe from the uh TSA.
The uh uh airline screeners.
Um pay them overtime.
Back after this, stay with us.
Well, the Democrats uh getting all excited, campaign season heating up.
John Edwards, the Breck girl, was on this week with uh uh George Stephanopoulos yesterday.
Steffi said, you've also said the president's the worst president of our lifetime, worse even than Richard Nixon.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
What has President Bush done that is worse than the crimes and the cover-ups of Watergate?
Well, he's done a variety of things, things which are going to call it take us forever to recover from.
The damage that he's done to the way America's viewed in the world, the lack of respect for America and the world, uh what the ongoing war conflict in Iraq is doing to America's image.
Uh his response to this hurricane on the Gulf Coast, which I think is part of a pattern of incompetence.
You know, I keep hearing everybody tells me just how smart this guy is, but I think he needs a dunce hat.
There is literally not one original syllable.
This is Kookville talking points.
And it's also absurd.
He's done a variety of things.
He was asked about high crimes and misdemeanors like Watergate.
Well, he's done a variety of things, and they're going to take us forever to recover from the damage he's done to the way America's viewed in the world, a lack of respect for America.
It's BS.
And I don't even think he's got the sense to know it.
Uh recover from this, we're not going to have to recover from this.
Uh the people he's worried about are a bunch of socialist elites in Europe who couldn't defend themselves if an alligator was attacking them.
And so they come around and they cry and they whine and they moan about the United States, and all we'd have to do to get them back on our side is get a Democrat back in a White House, let the UN have whatever it wants that we've got, and let these Europeans start fleecing the United States, start giving them money and giving them aid and so forth, and they will love us as though uh we are their own child.
It is just you know, Mr. Breckgirl, you're gonna have to do better.
And if you're really serious about about reviving a political career, this this is this is just it's embarrassingly disappointingly sad and uh pathetic.
I mean, it's a horrible performance.
This guy's gotta take him to TV show school.
All right.
We reported this last week.
Brian Ross, investigative reporter, ABC, has been told uh by a uh uh uh an unnamed source that the federal government, the CIA, somebody, FBI, they knew who he was talking to.
They were monitoring his phone calls.
On CNN's reliable source yesterday, Howard Kurtz talks to Brian Ross, says, What is your reaction at law enforcement officials are analyzing a numbers that you dial in an effort to track down your confidential sources?
Abstract way, I always thought that was likely or possible, but once I actually heard this specific information, and this person knew a couple of specific calls, it was truly alarming and made you think, well, my gosh, what are we going to do about this?
I mean, it means a lot more uh in-person visits.
Oh, no, don't tell me it's true.
You're gonna have to get out of the office to do your investigative reporting.
No.
Why, what's becoming of investigating reporting?
You got an in-person visit, got to actually go talk to these people?
Oh, no.
And then uh that we have this exchange.
Kurt says, well, if sources are leaking classified information, which is illegal on their part, why shouldn't the government be able to investigate and track down which reporters they're talking to?
I think going after reporters' phone calls and phone records is a way of chilling and uh preventing us from doing our job.
And by if you are chilling reporters, you're chilling the first amendment.
And I think that the public's right to know in this case supersedes these issues.
If on their own they can figure it out, I think that's fair game in a way.
Uh going after our phone calls, tracking them.
Uh, we've received no notification formally from the phone companies or from the government that our records have been pulled.
Uh, if in fact they have done that, and we don't know about it.
That's very upsetting.
Yeah, I don't care if they get the information from us as long as they do it fair.
Um, but they're not trying to chill reporters.
Uh they're trying to chill these sources who are leaking things.
And then Alberto Gonzalez on this week with Stephanopoulos.
You you believe journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information?
It depends on the circumstances.
Uh, there are some statutes on the book which uh, if you if you read the language carefully would seem to indicate that that is a possibility.
That's a policy judgment by the Congress in passing that kind of legislation.
We have an obligation to enforce those laws.
We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected.
Okay, no, it's a balancing act.
Uh national security or not chill reporters, because that's chilling the First Amendment.
Now, the First Amendment's been plenty chilled.
Parts of the First Amendment are on ice.
Uh, it's called campaign finance reform.
And even more uh of the First Amendment is gonna be put on ice because you know, though there's a loophole in campaign finance reform, and it allowed the creation of these 527 organizations.
The George Soros' the Move on dot orgs, and uh McCain and Fine goes say, yeah, well, we know we uh it's kind of slipped through us.
We didn't see that.
Uh so they're making moves on now to tighten down those people's operations.
And they're just you know it's just like a hose, you squeeze it one place in the water, it'll go somewhere else.
They're never gonna get the money out of politics, despite the fact that that's their objective and their claim.
Um so First Amendment's uh already been chilled, Mr. Ross.
Uh gotta go quick time out.
We'll be back in just seconds.
Stay with us.
A programming note and reminder, uh, ladies and gentlemen, I will not be behind the golden EIB microphone tomorrow.
Mark Belling will be sitting in, will be back on Wednesday from the EIB Southern Command and get it all revved up and started all over again.
It's great being with you today.
It's uh it's been a hoot.
Uh I love and appreciate the fact that you're there each and every day, and look forward to it each day.
So Wednesday's up next for me.
See you then.
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