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June 28, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:29
June 28, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
And on top of the world, on top of the Southern Command EIB broadcast complex, I am Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network back on the air.
It's just a fastest week in media, the fastest three hours in media.
It seems like only mere moments ago.
We were together, ladies and gentlemen, solving the problems of the nation and the world and the universe, and I thought we did, but there are more problems that have cropped up because that's the nature of things, and so lots of things to deal with.
Happy to have you along.
Great to be with you.
The uh telephone number, if you'd like to be on the program today is 800 282-2882.
The email address.
If you uh want to go that route is 800 at a rush, rather, it's rush at EIBNet.com has turned on my uh volume in here a little loud today.
No problem, Brian.
I think it was my fault, not going to blame you.
Um you see the um the way the Associated Press is covering the Supreme Court decision on the uh Texas redistricting case.
Here's the slug line court Nick's is part of Texas political map.
The fractured decision was a small victory for Democratic and minority groups.
The I guess it's never going to change.
The Democrats got their clocks cleaned in this.
The Democrats wanted practically all of the redistricting thrown out.
This is uh one of their many efforts here to fight back at Tom Delay.
Uh, but this this is uh this is really a win, and it's a win in this sense.
Uh the vast majority of the redistricting appears to have been upheld uh in in this case.
And I tell you, as I look at this, we appear to just be one justice short of leaving it to the states to draw their political boundaries, unless there's some serious effort to discriminate, of course, then other authorities would uh would move in.
Uh but there was a five to four split here, and it was on that point, and and uh to me that means that that that uh Justice Kennedy and the other four liberals on the court overreached on this point.
What this is about, and the reason the drive by media is excuse me.
The reason the drive-by media is a is calling this a a uh uh uh a small victory for Democrats and uh minority groups cited Justice Kennedy writing for the majority, saying that Hispanics do not have a chance to elect a candidate of their choosing under the current redistricting plan in Texas.
Republicans picked up six Texas congressional seats two years ago, and the court's ruling does not seriously threaten those gains.
Yet this was a small victory for Democrats and who minority groups.
Uh the uh court's ruling doesn't seriously threaten those gains.
Lawmakers, however, will have to adjust boundary lines to address the court's concern.
At issue was the shifting of 100,000 Hispanics out of a district represented by a Republican incumbent and into a new oddly shaped district.
Opponents of that plan had argued that that was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the voting rights act, which protects minority voting rights.
So the uh they gotta fix that one.
Uh, and that is the small win.
And the reason that's looked at as a win, even though they lost the big plan, which was to get rid of the whole redistricting uh map, uh, is that it allows the Democrats to claim the Hispanics as theirs as to say that we're we're we're we're the party of Hispanics and Party of Minorities, the uh the party of these various uh different constituencies, and of course they're all excited about it.
But uh one one more justice.
Uh uh we're just one justice away from all of this being a moot point anyway, where the states would be allowed to draw their own map.
That's what the flag burning thing's all about.
Everybody is uh up in arms over the flag burning.
In fact, let's let's go to the audio sound bites on this.
Here's Dick, let's go to number three.
Uh Dick Turbin on the Senate floor this morning during the flag burning debate.
We are here because the White House and the Congressional Republican leadership are nervous about the upcoming elections.
They want to exploit Americans' patriotism for their gain in November.
It's the same thing with the gay marriage amendment.
It wasn't a priority for America.
It's a priority for Carl Rove and the Republican strategist.
The real issue here isn't the protection of the flag, it's the protection of the Republican majority.
We're not setting out to protect old glory, we're Setting out to protect old politicians.
That's what this is about.
Sadly, Republican leaders are forcing this debate so they can accuse some who disagree with them of being unpatriotic and unamerican.
Well, then why if it's so unimportant and it doesn't matter, why are you so worried about it?
I'm I'm sure that you would want Democrats or Republicans to be wasting their time on things.
The issues like flag burning are just Carl Rove ploys to elect Republicans.
Well, Senator, if these issues aren't important, why are you so worried they're going to impact the elections?
Now let's talk about this flag burning business because what's really going on here is not it if there are two things.
It's not just the flag burning amendment per se as it relates to the substance of the issue.
There is also a big argument here over Congress securing the rights to uh make these kinds of decisions back from the Supreme Court.
Uh this this um, you know, the the the this got started back in 1989, and I remember the first flag burning debate, the first flag burning issue, and the the courts uh ruled that it was not constitutional to uh to have some law saying you could burn the flag.
I had many arguments, people, even my friends on my side of the aisle.
One of the things that's going on here is an attempt uh to wrest back some of the uh power from the judicial branch over the uh issue of flag burning and and things like it, in addition to the substance of the issue.
Now, you heard Durbin.
I I'd call Durbin Durbin probably thinks of himself as an elite, as the upper crust is a special guy, is different, smarter than everybody else in the room.
And what what people like Durbin don't understand, uh the flag amendment resonates with the public because the public does believe in the country.
The vast majority of the American people believe in the country.
They oppose open borders because the public loves their country, and they don't want to see the country uh uh harmed and and and frittered away.
They don't want to see it disrespect.
It's bad enough out there to have the New York Times giving away every governmental secret we have, sabotaging every effort we're making to win the war on terror.
People get fed up.
And then you come along and some some worthless scrams of human debris want to run and burn the flag.
Oh, yeah, go ahead, but we're just supposed to sit around and take all this.
We're just supposed to sit around and say, yeah, you go do what you want to do to you can trash this country, you can open the borders, you can destroy it however you wish, you can show disrespect.
Uh yeah, we're just gonna sit around and watch you do this.
Is the not the attitude the American people have.
Now, the amendment process is a legitimate process for changing the Constitution.
And that's all this was.
Flagburning amendment, they're trying to amend the Constitution.
It's written right in there how you do it.
Yet it's denigrated because of what the amendment is about.
When the court issues a fiat changing the Constitution, that's supposed to receive respect and even all.
Why, look, the Supreme Court back in 1973 found the right to privacy.
It guarantees uh the right of a woman to have an abortion.
Oh, how brilliant!
Oh, how wonderful!
Oh, and that's not how you amend the Constitution.
The court is not allowed to just by fiat find something in there that's not there and proclaim it a new law.
They do it all the time.
Now here is a legitimate effort to change the Constitution by via uh via amendment, the amendment process, and it's denigrated and derided and called a political ploy.
Maybe some politics in it, but what's not politics about what we do and how we manage our affairs.
Uh, you know, it's it's uh uh.
You know, it it's it's it's simply time for Congress to take back the flag issue from the courts, and that's one of the things that's involved here.
Uh the flag is symbol of the nation.
It's carried into war.
It has been from day one.
Some people would argue that burning it strikes at the heart of our democracy, but this is more a separation of powers and federal issues federalism issue here as I have described it.
We have the Supreme Court deciding that states cannot law fl outlaw flag burning, and that's what the 1989 thing was all about.
Some states wanted to outlaw it.
Supreme Court, you can't do that.
So this is an attempt to get back some power from the courts uh via the uh amendment to the Constitution process.
In addition of, as I say, to the substance of the issue, the actual burning of the clack uh flag.
Now the court ruled um five to four back in 1989, uh reversing some two hundred years of recognized authority by the states.
Uh, these laws are not always enforced, well, like all such laws, and some are enforced, some aren't.
Anyway, but if if if two-thirds of both houses of Congress, oh, ladies and gentlemen, uh, and three-fourths of the states want to protect the flag, the way to do it is the way they're trying it, and that is via the amendment process, regardless of what the First Amendment says uh or is said to say.
Now, the opponents you just heard uh you just heard uh uh Durbin, and they're calling this a distraction.
Have you noticed that every time we want to legitimately defend our traditions and institutions, particularly through the amendment process?
We are distracting the libs.
Why?
We have much more serious things to do than to mess around with amending the Constitution uh through the amendment process.
Well, it's terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly uh distracting to the lids.
Distracting them from what?
Undermining our war effort?
I'm fed up with all of them, folks.
I'm sure many of you are too.
Got to take a brief time out here.
We'll do that and be back in just a second on the EIB network.
Don't go away.
Sir Howard Dean says the Democratic Party.
Well, all of us, we're we're living in the 50s, so we're we're about we're about to relive the 1960s, uh, ladies and gentlemen.
And the truth of the matter is the Democrats haven't gotten out of the 1960s.
They're still in the 1960s, and they're trying to relive the 1960s here in the early 2000s.
Let's go to the audio sound bites.
This is Howard Dean yesterday in Washington, Democratic National Committee Chairman speaking at a religious conference.
You hear about this also uh Barack Obama, who is uh uh being touted as the the next great hope of the Democrats when it comes to the presidency, is out there saying the Democrats have to court evangelicals.
See that?
Let's see where Barack Obama is in a couple weeks.
Oh, out there has to has to court evangelicals.
And I what reminded me of that is that here's uh here's Chairman Dean uh speaking to a religious conference.
We have a couple of bites.
Here's the first one.
We're here back in the 50s in the McCarthy era, in the time where there wasn't civil rights, uh, in the time where there's an authoritarian government that thought they deserved everything and that nobody needed to know anything, and we're about to enter into the 60s again in the age of enlightenment, led by religious figures who wanted to greet Americans with a moral uplifting vision.
The problem is when we hit that 60s spot again, which I am optimistic we're about to hit, we have to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes.
What mistakes might he be talking about?
How about if I'm a wild-eyed radical liberal who is willing to say the Conservatives had some good ideas, but let's go back and make what we wanted to work using some of their ideas to make sure that the mistakes don't get made again that we made.
Those mistakes were not the downfall of our program.
They helped a lot more people than they heard.
But we can do better, and we will do better the next time in our time is coming.
I'll tell you, I uh does anybody know what he's talking about?
Does anybody have I mean, other than the basics?
They want to relive the 60s.
We don't, and I know the 50s, they think Bush is a modern day Joe McCarthy, and if nobody has any freedom and nobody has any civil liberties left, and everybody's just just walking on around with the government spying on them and uh and all this.
We're not at war.
We're total peace, uh love and all that's free-flowing everywhere, and then Bush is just destroying it for everybody.
We're about to re-enter the 60s.
They haven't left the 1960s.
Uh that's their problem.
The 60s were their glory uh days.
I'm in fact, I'm sort of happy that uh Dean admits this.
I'm interested to see if this becomes uh an official sort of campaign position that the Democrats have.
I kind of doubt it.
He's probably just winging it on his uh on his own.
He said, uh McCarthy era, there wasn't civil rights, a time where there's an authoritarian government who felt they deserved everything and that nobody needed to know anything, and we're about to enter the 60s again, the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who wanted to greet Americans with a moral uplifting vision.
I'm clueless.
And then he talks about how uh had some ideas the 60s didn't quite work out well, but it's uh that some of them didn't.
What is he talking about?
A Great Society?
Have you seen what John Edwards, the brick girl, he's out there again, and he just uh I guess he's on newsweek or in newsweek, and he's out there saying he's got a new plan, 30 year plan to wipe out poverty.
Now, uh has he heard of the Great Society or the war on poverty?
Uh those two plans are still in action, uh particularly the war on poverty, the Great Society still being implemented as uh as often and as much as possible.
Uh and they were from the sixties, so they're over forty years old now, or right around forty years old, and they're s they're they're demonstrable failures, and yet he's come up with a new 30-year plan to end poverty if somehow he gets elected.
If he's not elected, then screw it.
He's not going to tell anybody what his plan is, they're not going to implement it.
Uh but again, we're not supposed to examine the results of these programs.
We're only supposed to examine the intentions, the the good intentions.
But again, it's just a it's a it's a great example of how they rehash things.
Here's Dean wants to go back to the sixties, although he says we're going to approach him from the fifties because this is the McCarthy era.
Uh and then uh we're gonna have John Edwards recycling the war on poverty all over again, even though the current one's still underway.
What what's the exit strategy for the war on poverty?
It would seem to me that we gotta have an exit strategy for the war on poverty if we're gonna start a new one under the Bret girl.
So, or maybe they're just gonna combine these have two wars, simultaneous war fought on two fronts, uh both call the war on poverty.
One of them is supposed to be finished and successful by now, the other one will be successful in thirty years.
That's the Breck Girl's plan.
So whether they announce they're they're going back to the sixties or not, they're still there.
Uh and they have they have no desire to leave.
This is Gill.
Let's go to the phones quickly.
Gil in uh in Philadelphia.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you very much, Russ Limbaugh.
Say to sanity, it's an honor to be speaking.
Thank you, sir.
Thanks very much out there.
Hey, Wilson, you know, it occurred to me as a conservative and loving uh uh constrained government the way I do it.
I think we're really taking the wrong attitude towards the flag burning thing.
You know, I can't burn leaves in my backyard without uh, you know, getting a fine for it.
And it occurred to me that when they go to burn these flags, we don't know that they're environmentally friendly flags.
Yeah, but you see, you're talking about liberal attitudes here.
See, those leaves that you're burning, a number of bad things could happen.
People could breathe the smoke and and get sick.
I mean, the even Bush's attorney general came out yesterday with the most outrageous secondhand smoke stuff I've ever heard.
I I'm uh we're gonna deal with that as the program unfolds.
But leaves cause smoke, uh they they stink, uh, they smell.
And all that and plus they could set poor people's houses on fire.
That's and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we don't want to be doing that.
But a flag is political dissent.
When you, as far as the liberals concerned, when you go out there and do anything that says, my country sucks, they're on your side.
Yeah, but Rush, you know, they set these flags on fire and then they lift them up on poles why those burning embers could fall in the eyes of children.
You know, I I think we need to regulate that won't fly.
The kids deserve it if they're that close to the flag.
Being close to the American flag that the liberals pose is a great danger anyway, could terrorists could shoot you.
Never know what could happen out there.
Flag, stay away from it, especially when it's on fire.
Just just sit there watching marvel at the at the descent that that you were watching.
It's sort of like sort of like secondhand smoke.
Have you noticed it never applies to marijuana?
Well, you know, y you're right about that.
Maybe we could have mar flags made of marijuana.
Uh made of marijuana.
Well, the liberals have uh they'd be smoking flags in addition to whatever else they smoke.
Well, I just think that uh the right approach here would be to poison the left with some of their own medicine.
And let them burn the flags, but they should be environmentally friendly.
They shouldn't we have to make sure there's a wet zone so that none of the embers can set a tree on fire.
None of the, you know, we they can't lift it up over their heads on a pole that the embers can't fall in the eyes of children.
I mean, if they want to burn a flag, I'm just so concerned that they do it right, Raj.
I want I want to end pain, Rush.
And there's a lot of pain in this country.
Yes, there is.
Pain and suffering.
Uh uh, there's way too much of it in the United States.
Uh and uh it's it's it's uh it's a moral crime uh how much pain and suffering is out there.
We don't care, we don't know anything about it.
Worst country on earth.
Uh but I understand uh no, no, no.
I understand your concern about this.
Uh other fires, of course, damaging uh.
In fact, we try to put most fires out.
Uh when the flag starts burning, we're s no, we're supposed to stand back and respect it and so forth.
It's a good point, environmentally safe flags made specifically for burning.
That's a kind of I think, you know, we wonder, are there any liberal entrepreneurs?
There are probably very few.
Most of them are sponges.
Most of them depend on other people, think they're owed this or owed that.
But I'll bet you if we came up with a requirement that flags to be burned have to be manufactured according to certain regulations and standards, and they'll burn clean, no pollution, sort of like automobile engines.
I'll bet you'd have a race among liberals to start up businesses that sell environmentally approved flags manufactured specifically and exclusively for burning.
You can't do anything else with them.
That would draw out some liberal entrepreneurs, wouldn't it?
Back in just a section.
I know.
Thank you.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen.
We're back.
El Rush Bow America's real anchor man serving humanity with half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair, simply by being here.
It's automatic.
It happens when I show up.
Our telephone number 800-282-2882.
And a special welcome once again to those of you watching the program unfold before your very eyes and ears on the Ditto Cam here at www.rushlinbought.com.
Uh Clyde.
I love getting calls from guys named Clyde.
Clydes are real guys.
Hey, you never met a metrose sexual named Clyde, did you?
Never have you never will.
Clyde is from Fort Myers, Florida.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
How are you doing, Russ?
Never better, Clyde.
Never better.
Good afternoon.
I'm actually from New Haven, Kentucky.
I was calling them.
I'm I'm distracted.
I've been distracted for 38 years since birth by the Democrats promising to do something with uh uh Social Security, and they failed.
And I wish they would have just passed this amendment on this flag, so we quit talking about it and move on to Social Security and get that taken care of here.
You know, this is this is why I always love getting calls from guys named Clyde.
Because guys named Clyde are real guys, they're real people.
Sold to the earth, uh, and they get right to the point of it.
Clyde, that's an excellent point.
He's referring here to Dick Durbin.
First, it was the uh uh uh what was it?
Not the flag burning amendment.
Well, what uh uh uh uh uh what was the issue that that uh the uh uh uh gay marriage.
Gay marriage amendment.
Uh Dick Durbin, a Democrat said, eh, that's a distraction.
This is just Carl Rove politics that this is just for the Republican base.
We need to get on to serious stuff here.
And of course, serious stuff, how long does it take for that to happen is Clyde's point.
Then came this flag burning business.
Yet Clyde's been waiting 38 years for Social Security reform.
Um not interested in social security reform, and they don't take up serious things.
That's an excellent point, Clyde.
Look, the the Democrats are just transparent as they as they can be on all this.
In fact, uh this is hilarious.
Barbara McCulski, uh the and and what do they call it?
The uh the uh Democrat female senators have have come up with a plan called a checklist, because they're upset the Senate's not getting anything done.
They're upset the Senate is is is wasting time.
Let's let's listen to Babs McCulski and uh and Barbara Babok uh something like Bruce Babbitt, Barbara Boxer on the same subject.
Uh Babs McCulski from Maryland will explain this to us.
We, the Democratic women of the Senate, rise in a united way to launch something we're calling the Democratic Women for Change.
We want to change the tone in the United States Senate for one of more civility, and we want to change the schedule to get things done.
We have only 50 days left before this Senate adjourns.
This is why we've done our checklist.
We women know about checklists.
We remember all the important things that we need to get done by having a checklist.
It's what we use to keep our families on track, and now we bring a checklist to the United States Senate to get America on track.
Be kidding me.
This is what passes for seriousness in the United States Senate.
So the nine Democrat Senate gals are gonna have a checklist.
Now, is this somewhat sexist, and I I I don't mean in a put-down sort of way.
Uh, But she says, we women know about checklists.
We remember all the important things that we need to get done by having a checklist.
It's what we use to keep our families on track.
I would dare to say that there's probably a schedule somewhere in the U.S. Senate.
I would bet you that Dingy Harry has his own schedule for the Democrats, and I'll bet you Frist has his.
We know that there are schedules, checklists, all over the place.
But somehow only women understand the magic of a checklist and getting things done.
So here's Barbara McCulski announcing they're going to do this checklist.
And they want to bring civility back.
I don't know what a checklist has to do with bringing civility back.
You notice the Democrats always complain about civility when they're losing and when they're in the minority.
There is no civility when they're losing.
And it's I'm I'm trying to be respectful here.
I'm really trying, I'm restraining myself tremendously and commenting fully on this, but it's here's dirt.
We gotta get serious.
We gotta stop wasting our time.
Can't talk about flag burning, it's not gonna go anywhere.
Can't talk about same-sex marriage, these are Carl Grove distractions.
We're gonna get serious.
And what happens after that?
Barbara McCulski comes out, starts talking about how only women can get things done because they understand and use checklists.
Here's what Barbara Boxer had to say about it.
There have been four reports of flag burnings this year.
That is foo many.
But there were four.
Yet there are 44 million Americans whose pensions are at risk.
Four flags burned versus 7.5 million Americans who have been denied an increase in the minimum wage.
Four flags have been burned.
Four too many versus 170,000 talented college-ready students each year who stay home because they can't afford tuition.
Four flags burned versus 200,000 people in New Orleans living in trailers, unfinished houses, or tents in the front yards of their Katrina ravaged homes.
Four flags burned this year, four too many, versus two dollars and eighty-nine cents a gallon for regular gas.
Is she telling us the Senate hasn't done anything on this?
They spent so much time debating Katrina, blaming other people for it when they had a role in it themselves, coming up with all the money that was spent uh which which led to the record fraud, two billion dollars uh worth of uh worth of fraud.
Uh pensions are at risk.
What's the Senate gonna do?
They've been talking about this.
Uh seven and a half million Americans denied an increase in the minimum wage.
Senator Kennedy introduced the uh resolution.
They voted on it last week.
You know, it's not that the Senate's not tackling these things, Miss Boxer.
It is that the Senate is voting down Democrat ideas, left, right, middle.
Nine out of ten times, seven out of ten times, or what have you.
But the idea that dealing with the flag burning amendment uh uh is taking away valuable time from serious exploits of the Senate is absurd.
Uh let's see, what else?
Oh, do you know that speaking of of uh of the minimum wage, Democrats in the Senate, because Kennedy's bill failed, came up with this plan to be at one with minimum wagers, minimum wage earners.
And you know, the House authorized a congressional pay raise last week.
The Democrats in the Senate said, nope.
We're gonna not gonna authorize this until the minimum wage increase is passed.
Now, well, that's that's that's how you relate to the minimum wagers.
Uh the senators, most of them, most of this this uh.
Whatever their salaries are is pocket money for most of these Democrats.
They arrive there multimillionaires or married to multi-billiers.
This stuff just becomes, you know, tip money, what you pay off the Capitol Police with or whatever.
Uh uh.
Little jocularity there, of course, ladies and gentlemen.
Nevertheless, uh in solidarity with minimum wagers, they have decided to postpone this until the minimum wage goes up.
They planned this big announcement for yesterday, uh uh uh Tuesday.
Big announce Monday night they planned it, not enough time to really get it done right.
They planned this big announcement at noon on Tuesday to express solidarity with minimum wages.
Well, something didn't happen that was supposed to happen.
Uh a few days ago, Dingy Harry got hold of Hillary and said, Look, we're planning this.
We don't know where it's going to be, we don't know when it's going to be, but we're going to do this.
Uh, and then on Monday night they decided to do it Tuesday at noon, and nobody told Hillary about it, giving her enough time to show up.
And Hillary staff member told one of Reed's staff members in the hall was overheard.
You suck.
They had these arguments going back and forth, because Dingy Harry left Hillary out of, or didn't give Hillary enough time to show up at the big press conference to announce their solidarity with the uh with the minimum wagers.
This from the gang who says we're not doing enough and nothing is getting done.
Uh it's a comedy of errors watching these clowns.
Ed in Lansing, Michigan, welcome to the EIB network, sir.
It's a pleasure to have you with us.
Yes, thanks for taking my call.
Uh yes, sir.
I'm a Republican from Michigan, and uh when I heard Durbin's comments on your show, I as we talked as you talked yesterday about Peter King, you have to give him his due.
My question is w over campaign finance reform.
Us conservatives stood behind the wanted to stand behind the first amendment.
Doesn't he have a valid point here?
I'm not sure I follow you.
Well, freedom of speech, freedom of expression.
We we felt as though that to not be able to contribute money to whatever campaign we wanted to in the amount we wanted to would be preempting us as individuals from expressing our first amendment right.
I mean, I don't agree with flag burning on a personal level.
I wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't recommend anybody else doing it, but doesn't he have a point?
Are you are you uh I'm still not sure I get this.
Are you are you suggesting that people ought to have the same right to burn the flag as they do contribute to somebody's political campaign because flag burning is considered f uh political speech?
I I guess I am.
I I I I'm I have all these arguments.
I had all these arguments back in nineteen eighty-nine.
I've been through this.
If you do we want to call fire speech.
No, no, just answer.
We want to call fire speech.
It's an expression.
It's not a speech, but it is an expression.
Uh of dissent, and I'm not saying I agree with it, but it seems to me that Congress has abridged the first amendment on a couple of occasions.
McCain Feingold for one.
We can't contribute all the money we want at certain times uh prior to elections, and candidates cannot run certain commercials at certain times prior to elections, and the Supreme Court found the McCain fine gold was in fact constitutional.
There was something interesting though earlier this week.
There was a Supreme Court decision in Vermont.
Vermont had draconian campaign finance laws.
What was the number?
Only 300,000 300 grand is all that could be spent on a governor can camp gubernatorial campaign and two hundred dollar donations maximum to members of the Vermont House.
And this was being done if you heard the arguments, it was the same reason we got for McCain Fine.
Well, it it takes money out of politics and with uh uh too much money corrupts politics and corrupts politicians.
Why, politicians are angels.
I mean they're clean and pure is the wind-driven snow.
You throw money at them and they corrupt them.
So we're gonna get the money out of it, so we won't have corrupt politicians and uh and corrupt elections and so forth.
So three hundred thousand dollars, the max it could be spent on a campaign for governor, two hundred dollars the maximum donation to a member of the Vermont House running for reelection.
The Supreme Court said that is absurd and said those limits are are at precise limits on free speech, political speech.
Well now I saw that, in fact, did today's award-winning morning update on that, and I wondered does that open the door for McCain Feingold to be revisited.
And if it uh if it does, uh then it's an indication here that this court, if it rehears the case or portions of it, might be a different result.
So you can sit there, you talk about the first amendment and the grant guarantees us to do this, and they're already abridging it in a number of ways.
But this argument, let me restate this about flag burning.
There are two things going on here.
And by the way, it's interesting to look at the vote on the actual flag burning amendment in the floor of the Senate yesterday.
Every Democrat candidate running for president voted essentially to allow flag burning.
Every Republican candidate for president, assumed a candidate for president voted uh to not make flag burning, something that that is that is legal.
But this case goes back to 1989.
The states were allowed to make their own laws on this, Ed.
And the U.S. Supreme Court just said, nope, you states don't have the right to make laws like this.
We're gonna decide this, and they made flag burning constitutional.
There's no constitutional amendment.
They just by fiat addressed it that way.
What was also going on with the flag burning amendment yesterday is not just a statement on the flag, but an attempt to amend the Constitution legitimately and take some power away from the courts.
As I said at the beginning of the show, there were two things going on with this.
Now they used to ask to whether or not burning a flag shows dissent.
I mean, where does where does this stop?
What if somebody try to set the White House on fire to show dissent?
Or some other government building.
Uh what it would have I thought we weren't supposed to allow people to be offended.
The liberals will not allow themselves to be offended whatsoever.
If they're gonna if they're offended by anything, why we've got to stop it.
We've got to stop speech that offends them, we've got to stop activity that offends them, we gotta stop employant practices that defend them.
Well, here come a bunch of people who are offended by burning a flag, and those people who are offended are told to stuff it.
Back in just a second.
Stevie the Boy Wonder.
Bumper Rotation, EIB Network.
Rush Limbaugh, America's Truth Detector.
And Doctor of Democracy.
Chris in Hamilton, Ohio.
I'm glad you called, sir.
Welcome.
Hi.
Um you asked the question about whether fire was speech.
Yes.
I I would argue that uh burning a nation's flag is the most universally recognized form of criticism of that government.
Why would you argue that?
Well, we had the situation recently where the uh where there were Danish newspapers publishing um apparently uh offensive uh cartoons about Muhammad, and and the Muslims worldwide were drawing and then burning Danish flags in protest uh against that.
Right.
That's okay, so uh we want to.
So we're gonna cite militant Islamists as the reason why flag burning is a universally accepted uh, what did you call it, uh, form of criticism of the government.
What about what about to say that's the reason?
I would say that's an example.
Okay, well, okay.
What about cross-burning?
You know, the Supreme Court said you can't burn a cross, uh obviously you can burn the flag.
Why why is burning the cross, do you think, so much more offensive and problematic than burning a flag?
Well, I don't know why it's more offensive and problematic, but it is not an example of criticism of a government where burning a nation's flag is.
Okay.
Well, then I got uh you know what you've convinced me.
Okay.
You you've convinced me.
It doesn't happen much on this program, but you've convinced me that burning a flag is a universal sign of dissent nationwide, worldwide.
Uh, this is how you do it.
And and because it's you're protesting a government when you when you do it, right?
That's correct.
All right.
Fine and dandy.
Well, then I have a um uh an idea that I'd like to run by everybody.
Thanks, uh, thanks very much for the uh call, Chris.
Appreciate it so much.
But I think these give me an idea.
Uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh, how about how about a bunch of us gather at uh favorite uh mall or uh restaurant or public place and all start lighting up a bunch of cigarettes, get out a lighter, get some matches, and light cigarettes and start smoking them.
You can't do that, you can't there are any smoking.
I am protesting government regulations.
This cigarette, these cigarettes that we're gonna light out there, I'll I'll bring cigars.
Uh the these these will represent uh dissent.
We're dissenting against overreaching federal regulations.
And state regulation, we're gonna we're gonna we're protesting every government there is, from the town council to the city council to the mayor to the state to the feds.
Who are you just gonna light up and fire?
It's already been claimed to be constitutional here as speech.
Uh so a cigarette en masse by a bunch of people, you I like the guy's thought process, folks.
It allows uh uh for many opportunities to take place, uh, at least be presented.
Be right back after this.
Stay with us.
Yeah, once we light our cigarettes out there to protest government regulations, we then will take these lighted cigarettes and bring them in contact with, say, a tax form.
So the tax form starts burning, uh protesting government regulations.
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