All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 8, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:17
February 8, 2007, Thursday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh Program, the EIB network.
And yesterday we discussed the story of two Border Patrol agents, Ramos and Campillon, who apprehended an illegal alien drug smuggler in the Texas area near the Mexican border.
And when he fled, they were in an altercation with him and fired their weapons at him as they testified at trial because they saw something shiny in his hand as he was running away.
His mother, by the way, has since said he never went to the United States with drug shipments without carrying a gun.
The Border Patrol agents only hit him once.
They hit him in the left buttock.
The bullet traveled through the buttocks.
So in other words, he was not shot in the back, which was the first report from the government.
He was shot in the side because as he was running away, he was turned to the left with his arm raised.
In other words, in a position of shooting back at the Border Patrol agents.
Only the two Border Patrol agents involved here and the drug smuggler know what actually happened that day.
Both of the Border Patrol agents testified they felt that their lives were in danger, that he was going to fire, that he had avoided contact, that he had come into contact with one of these guys and then run away in some kind of scuffle.
And the jury and the prosecutor believed the illegal alien drug smuggler who said, oh, I was just an innocent guy.
I was trying to get out of there.
They shot me.
Notwithstanding the fact, this guy was shot in the butt, but continued running.
I mean, his story is he was shot in the butt.
At the time, the two Border Patrol officers didn't even think he was shot because he kept running.
In any event, then along comes the Department of Homeland Security saying that actually these two, Ramos and Campillon, Border Patrol agents, had confessed that they knowingly shot an unarmed suspect, had confessed that they did not believe the suspect was a threat to them.
They stated that day that they, quote, wanted to shoot a Mexican, unquote.
They were belligerent to investigators.
They destroyed evidence.
They lied to investigators.
All of this to Congressman John Culverson and other Republican congressmen of Texas who wanted to know what was going on with a government who believed an illegal alien drug smuggler over their own Border Patrol agents as to what went on.
The Border Patrol agents, by the way, are serving hard time, 11 and 12 years in the federal penitentiary, one of them assaulted by illegal alien inmates in his Mississippi federal prison just last Saturday.
Mr. Culberson and others were asking the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, so where is this report that says all this about Ramos and Campillon?
You've said it to us, but where's the investigative report?
This was last September.
This week they admitted no such report existed.
Congressman John Culberson joins us now on the Rush Show.
Congressman, welcome.
Roger, great to be with you, and I thank you for shining sunlight on this critically important story of what appears to be a cover-up of a terrible injustice to two good law enforcement officers.
Well, I think it is too.
Although today, and the Washington Times reports it, among others, the Department of Homeland Security did release an investigation that of this 2005 shooting, and they do find that the shooting did occur, that the agents tried to cover it up by collecting all their spent shells, and that no report was filed as required by the Border Patrol rules.
What do you read in this investigative report that did, at least in part, it's redacted a little bit, but that did get released today.
What I see in this report, Roger, is that these officers at most should have been suspended for three days, perhaps a week.
Maybe worst case scenario, fired from their job, but looks to me like a suspension.
The way the Border Patrol operates, Roger, and I've personally interviewed Officer Compeon and talked to other Border Patrol agents who confirmed that when a Border Patrol agent draws their weapon and uses it, they are only required to give a verbal report to their supervisor, and it is the supervisor's responsibility to fill out the written report.
Now, Officer Compeon did tell me he picked up the shells.
He should not have.
They did not conduct the reporting of the shooting properly.
But again, it's an administrative violation at most.
And clearly, a terrible injustice has been done to these agents, and they are, as you say, serving 11 years in prison because the jury was not told when this drug smuggler was presented to them.
I understand the drug smuggler was presented to them essentially as a Boy Scout, and the jury had no idea of the guy's history or that he was even carrying a load of drugs that day.
And I just learned today, in fact, about an hour ago, Roger, that not only is that the transcript for the trial is complete, except for the testimony of Ramos and Compillion is not in there.
So the trial transcript is still not released.
It's incomplete.
The more I learned, the stinkier this gets.
It's a cover-up, I believe, to throw Congress off the scent and prevent us from doing our job.
And a terrible injustice has been done to our sworn law enforcement officers who are trying to protect this country.
Congressman John Culverson with us from Texas.
Congressman, today the Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, appeared before, I believe, your panel.
Did he not?
Yes, he did.
I just finished questioning him.
And did you get in?
I know there's a lot of other issues in Homeland Security, among others, offense at the border and so forth, but did you get into this topic?
I did indeed.
I asked him specifically, Roger, about the two agents.
I framed the question because I knew he would dodge it in terms of the effect on morale of Border Patrol officers in general.
And because you had told me about that incident in San Diego yesterday morning, I was able to mention that as well, that yesterday morning at 7 a.m., a Border Patrol officer was almost run down, had to draw his weapon, take a shot at a drug smuggler.
The officer and the smuggler are incommunicado, and the consul general of Mexico was called, and I asked Secretary Chertoff, why are we consulting with the consular officials of Mexico about the rights of drug smugglers and prosecuting and intimidating our Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officers trying to protect this country?
I got a vague and general answer.
He wouldn't address it directly.
I also had a chance to ask him, Roger, on January 3rd, there was an incident when armed mercenaries, drug smugglers were heading south into Mexico.
They confronted a National Guard unit in southern Arizona on January 3rd.
And your audience, this will send them through the roof.
It sent me through the roof.
I'm reading from the memorandum from Homeland Security, and I asked Secretary Chertoff, why is it, quote, standard operating procedure for our National Guardsmen to retreat when confronted with armed criminals on U.S. soil?
And he had no good answer.
You're kidding.
He had no answer to that?
No, he's a good idea.
Pretty fundamental question.
No answer.
He said, National Guardsmen are under separate authority.
I don't really have direct control over them.
I'm not really sure what their procedures are, yada, yada, yada.
So we have a situation today, Roger, where our law enforcement officers are in jail for shooting a drug smuggler in the rear end.
The drug smuggler is suing us for $5 million.
The National Guardsmen, who either, if they have guns, they have no bullets, or if they have guns and they have bullets, their understanding operating procedure is to retreat in the face of armed criminals.
I confronted the Secretary with evidence that I have confirmed that there are a minimum, there are several dozen observation posts on U.S. soil in southern Arizona manned by armed criminals from Mexico watching the smuggling routes with high-powered rifles, binoculars, satellite phones.
I said, Mr. Secretary, here's the map.
Here are the GPS coordinates.
What is Homeland Security going to do to go in there and clean out these observation posts on U.S. soil?
And what are you going to do about changing these standard operating procedures so our National Guardsmen do not retreat?
Because I guarantee you, Mr. Secretary, in Texas, we don't retreat.
Americans don't retreat when confronted with criminals.
No good answer.
Wow.
No good answer.
Wow.
Very disheartening.
Very disheartening.
The only thing I can add to that, John Culberson with us, Congressman from Texas, the only thing I can add to that, Congressman, is that I am told now that when they're posted at the border, the National Guard troops do carry with them a little card that tells them how to cooperate in case they're taken hostage.
In fact, Roger, I have one of those cards.
The White House doesn't like this.
I have a copy of the card in my wallet.
This is a wallet plastic card issued to Border Patrol agents by the Tucson, Arizona Border Patrol on how to deal with, and I'm reading from it, Mexican military incursions on U.S. soil.
It happens so regularly, the Border Patrol had to issue a plastic wallet card to all the Border Patrol agents to deal with Mexican military units coming into the United States.
I told the Secretary the southern border is the Indian territory of the 21st century, except the Indians are carrying machine guns and satellite phones and body armor.
And our National Guard's been ordered to retreat.
We're intimidating our police officers, prosecuting them.
They're thinking twice before drawing their weapon.
What are you going to do about it?
And he went through the usual rig-amarole.
We wanted to be sure that they're following procedure and guidelines and reporting this, that, and the other.
The bottom line is the American public expects action.
And once the border is secure, they want it done immediately.
It should have been done a long time ago.
And the best answer, Roger, I would urge people to, first of all, contact the White House and ask the President to pardon these two law enforcement officers who are now in federal prison.
And that's number one.
So those two officers, Campion and Ramos, need to be pardoned by the President to send a signal to other law enforcement officers.
We're proud of you.
We stand behind you just as we do our soldiers in Iraq.
We recognize you on the border or in the front lines of terror, just as those soldiers are in Iraq.
And frankly, number two, Roger, I hope that we can all get behind our local law enforcement officers, particularly the border sheriffs, who are ready, willing, and able to do this job.
And if we simply give the border sheriffs the money, Roger, I've asked the sheriffs in Texas, if we give you the money to hire more deputies, give them machine guns and the equipment, how long will it take you, Sheriff, to have the border nice and quiet?
They said about two weeks.
Yep.
Easy.
It's law enforcement.
I have no doubt.
I have no doubt.
John Culberson, thanks so much.
Keep up the great fight.
We'll keep in touch with you.
I wanted to let this audience know that you're out there and you're doing it, and that's the kind of answers we're getting from the Bush administration.
It's just a scandal.
I assure you, Roger, I will never turn loose of this.
We will never win the war on terror until our borders are secure.
I serve on the Appropriations Committee.
I'm in charge of the money that goes to Homeland Security.
I'm on that subcommittee, and they're not going to get paid unless they enforce the law.
God bless you, Congressman.
Thanks for being on.
I appreciate it.
I'm Roger Hedgecock, InforRush.
After this break, we'll take your call.
Yesterday, on email feedback from the show from yesterday, I was urged to retreat on the harsh language.
Illegal alien rings harshly on the ears of many people, even though it is a technical legal term for people who are illegally in this country.
Alien, as in not a citizen of the United States, not legally here.
But I was urged to substitute a more compassionate phrase: UFN, or unidentified foreign national, unidentified foreign national.
Now, I am going to adopt that.
And I'm going to put it right up there with my other sensitivity with regard, for instance, to bums that I then called, because I wanted to be sensitive to this, homeless.
Now I call urban outdoorsmen, because you simply have to upgrade your sensitivity and your compassion index along with the times.
So now it's urban outdoorsmen and unidentified foreign nationals.
Yeah, Scott in San Diego's next.
Scott, welcome to the Russ Show.
Hi, Roger, and greetings from your hometown.
Absolutely.
You know, before I get into the Campion and Ramos, in 2005, I called the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration and confirmed this number.
At that time, it was 9.5 million reported mismatched Social Security numbers and workers.
And that was for 2004.
9.5 million people working over the table.
And I asked him, well, now, are all those illegal aliens?
And he said, no, some of those are typos, and some of those are people who got married during the year and didn't change their records.
Yeah, it's about 3%.
Yeah, yeah.
So if we give that maybe a whole 200,000, we still have well over 10 million people now working over the table with mismatched social security numbers.
That is correct.
The government knows exactly where the illegals are.
You got it.
And if you've got at least half that many working under the table, which I would think is a really low estimate, you've got over 15 million, and you add to that their spouses and children.
This number that has been brought up year after year after year as if nothing ever changes of 11 to 12 million illegal aliens is completely focused.
There's well over 20 million.
Yeah, and that's the number I use, is 20 million based on that same data.
There you go.
All right.
Well, I heard it yesterday reported by Jerry Corsi, I think, of the Friends of the Border Patrol, that a ballistics report on the bullet removed from the leg of the drug smuggler did not match either of the guns carried by Ramos and Campion.
And it seems to me that would really be important information to get confirmed.
Here's what happened.
Corsi's a reporter with WorldNetDaily.com.
Corsi said on this program yesterday that the ballistics report done by the surgeon at the Army facility that treated the illegal alien in this case, the unidentified foreign national, they took bullet fragments.
They didn't get a full bullet out of his butt.
They took fragments.
The fragments tended to show that it could have come from four different guns, one of which was the same gun that Ramos had, and that's how they pinned it to Ramos.
The actuality of the thing is that both Ramos and Campion did testify at their trial.
This guy kept running.
If you're shot in the butt, you're not going to be running like this.
He kept running.
Wherever he was shot, they didn't think it happened that day.
And so the ballistics report at least raises the suspicion that it might not have happened that day because a very incomplete fragment was unable to be focused on exactly what gun it came from.
Well, and Roger, you know, my understanding is that the bullet went through his butt ox, through his urethra, and into his right leg.
It went from left to right.
Yep, left to right, exactly.
And so that's a pretty long path.
It seems to me they could also generate the path of that bullet and find out if it's even possible for the angle of entry to have come from the direction.
You've been watching CSI.
But truly.
And they didn't do that.
They didn't do that.
That's just basic forensics.
It could be that this guy fell down and shot himself.
Who knows?
And we certainly don't know after that trial.
I know.
I know.
Scott, thanks for the call.
I've got to move on.
1-800-282-2882.
Here's Mike in Port Angeles, Washington, another one of my favorite spots.
Hi, Mike.
How are you doing?
Good.
As a retired law enforcement officer, I'd love to see those guys out of jail today.
But as a retired attorney, I'm concerned that a pardon at this stage of the proceedings will not get them what they need because it doesn't completely remove the onus of having been convicted.
It just simply sets it aside, and they won't get their job back.
Their ability to turn around and sue the federal government for false imprisonment like these guys do who have been convicted of a felony erroneously.
All of those things are by the board.
What I would like to see is a reversal of that conviction, and then the president can intervene and pardon them and take the whole thing off the table.
Well, the problem with that, Mike, is that they haven't even, they've been dragging their feet on the transcript of the trial without which an appeal cannot be taken.
And the judges issued a gag order on the defense attorneys, not on the prosecutor who's been going around the country propagandizing that these were bad cops and we did the right thing and so forth.
Wait a minute, you're saying the judge issued a unilateral gag order?
It didn't apply to all parties?
No, it applied to the defense only.
It applied to all the witnesses.
It applies, and by the way, the judge, she sequestered the exhibits until the whole transcript is done.
And I'm told just moments ago by Congressman Culverson that the transcript of the trial is done, except for the testimony of the two agents, which explicably is not done.
And I assume then that she has refused a bail pending appeal?
Correct.
It sounds like she has an agenda beyond anything that has anything to do with the law.
All reasonable people have come to the same conclusion, Mike, and I appreciate the call.
In the IBD, the Investors Business Daily I was talking about a moment ago, their editorial today, Free the Border 2, subhead Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos is assaulted in jail as a federal case that put him and fellow agent Jose Alonzo Compeon in prison continues to unravel.
Unravel.
So they talk about the fact that the Border Patrol, this business about they never reported, they tried to cover up, et cetera.
The Border Patrol manual specifies that only a verbal report needs to be made of shooting incidents like this.
All the agents in the field were discussing the shooting incident, including the supervisors who showed up after the shooting had taken place.
There were eight or nine Border Patrol agents there.
What more of a verbal report needed to be made?
The supervising Border Patrol agent, to whom the report would be made, was at the scene.
So this business, oh, well, they didn't report and they covered up and they tried to.
And actually, a written report was finally put in the record that didn't mention the shooting part because, again, as to all parties standing there, they thought they hadn't shot the guy because he kept running into Mexico.
Now these guys are that the illegal alien has immunity, has a green card, keeps running drugs across the border, and has a $5 million suit against you, the taxpayers of the United States.
Justice?
Welcome back to the Rush Show.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush.
Mark Bellinger coming in tomorrow and rush back, of course, for all of our benefits on Monday.
You know, this border issue, you know that it's getting traction when Senator Feinstein weighs in of California.
Senator Feinstein, Diane Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco when I was mayor of San Diego.
And I got to know her.
She is a very tough, savvy, intelligent, hard-driving politician.
And I have learned over the years to watch her because she always tacks to the center when something from the right is pulling her.
She always tacks to the center.
So she's tacking on the border now, calling on the Department of Homeland Security in a press release I received a couple of days ago, calling on the Department of Homeland Security to fill in or demolish existing border tunnels.
Now, this headline alone should cause you to pause.
What?
Do what?
It turns out that along the border, more than 70 tunnels have been detected between Mexico and the United States.
Tunnels sometimes so sophisticated that they include concrete reinforcement and rail lines for the purpose of pushing or having motorized carts carry the drugs under the border, sometimes way under.
These things are 40, 50 feet down, like mine shafts going across under the border.
One of the biggest and most sophisticated ones right here in San Diego.
And when it was discovered, the assumption was it would be destroyed.
It was astonishing to find out, I think this was just a couple of weeks ago now, that all of these tunnels are still there, that the Department of Homeland Security has no idea how many of them are still in use, that they put a cement plug at the end of this thing, and then the Mexicans said, well, we'll put a cement plug on our end, and maybe they did and didn't.
Nobody's checked.
But in the meantime, what happens is the smugglers just go around the plug and then find another way to get out and they use the remaining open tunnel that's in between because Homeland Security has determined that it would cost millions and millions of dollars.
They said the seven biggest tunnels would take $3 million to demolish.
How much does dynamite cost?
Now, I'm out of touch with the current market value of dynamite, but $3 million?
Even take a slurry combination, a little concrete or something, poke holes in the top of these things and just fill it up with concrete.
How much does that cost?
I'll do it.
By the way, I'll do this job for $3 million.
I got ideas.
But when you see Dianne Feinstein taking the Department of Homeland Security to task for not filling in or demolishing the discovered drug tunnels, when we all know that the discovered drug tunnels are very much fewer than the undiscovered drug tunnels, then there's this.
And I offer all of these just for your contemplation of whether or not, and here's the overall overreaching concern and question.
Is the Bush administration interested in securing the borders of the United States?
And I'm going to offer these pieces of evidence.
You make up your mind.
You make the call.
There are new regulations out on Medicaid meant to keep illegal immigrants from exploiting Medicaid.
The citizenship documentation requirement was written into the Deficit Reduction Act in Congress in 2005 because the report was that illegals were obtaining, through lax enforcement of citizenship documentation, were obtaining Medicaid.
It was costing $20 billion, $20 billion a year, going to illegals who then claim they don't get medical care, by the way, and they have to clog up the emergency rooms here in California, 29 of which have closed in Southern California in the last five years.
So now there's been a rebellion against the new regulations requiring citizenship documentation.
According to Donna Ross of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the new documentation requirement has created a significant barrier to health coverage for low-income citizens, particularly children, because she says the burden of the new requirement is falling on U.S. citizens who are otherwise eligible but aren't able to produce the required documents.
For example, many American citizens are unable to access birth certificates.
That is such bull, as everyone knows.
I once lost my birth certificate.
And by the way, the hospital I was born in was demolished, probably by illegals, I have no idea.
And I had to go to the L.A. County recorder's office where they have duplicate copies and pay some exorbitant bureaucratic fee, like five bucks, and I got myself a duplicate birth certificate.
So what?
If Medicaid is so important to you, a couple of minutes of running down where this is and getting a copy of it, because believe me, there's a copy of your birth certificate for most people somewhere.
But this woman contends that thousands and thousands of people are not getting the Medicaid they deserve and they're U.S. citizens.
People are being, she says, denied, terminated, or delayed, even when they appear to be eligible, blah, It's just another example of the pressure groups and the political pressure that exists to open the border and to open to all of our social service safety net illegal aliens.
Now, it gets worse than that, and I want to get into it very quickly, because the United States, with the fastest growing Spanish-speaking population in the world, is being assisted in its school system in every one of your school systems in your community.
They are getting Spanish-language textbooks.
They are getting Spanish-language textbooks from the Mexican government, from the Mexican government.
The Denver Public Schools in this article says they're grateful to the Mexican Council and the Mexican government for donating 30,000 Spanish-language textbooks for elementary students.
They also point out, the Mexican Council is very free to admit, these are the same textbooks used in Mexico.
May I tell you that the textbooks in use in Mexico teach that the United States stole all the land that was conquered by the American Army in the War of 1848, that we violated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that was signed after that war, even though we did not.
That the Mexicans are going to reclaim that land that was taken from Mexico, and that illegal aliens are a part of that reclaiming of the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas, etc.
So the textbooks that teach that, and they know that parents are not going to be able to read these textbooks, you know, of non-Spanish-speaking parents, so they know that when they introduce these textbooks, it isn't going to be noticed that the textbooks are teaching history from the Mexican point of view.
It is not a subtle program.
In 1989, President then-President Carlos Salinas of Mexico launched the Paisano program to assist Mexicans and their U.S.-born children to maintain their cultural, social, and political literacy about Mexico.
The program was designed to help Mexicans living in the United States resist assimilation, as they put it, not me, as they put it, resist assimilation.
Vicente Fox, the outgoing president of Mexico, Talked about his program was a program for Mexican communities abroad, a set of policies that would allow Mexicans to retain their Mexican language and culture in the United States.
And part of it was this textbook thing.
And they are concerned that if they do not do this, then all the Mexican kids will become gangbangers.
And this is their attempt to, this is the recourse they're into here.
So here is the problem.
When you use the same textbooks that are used in elementary school in Mexico, then you are going to be teaching kids to be Mexicans, not Americans.
I'm not saying that the language of Spanish shouldn't be used.
What I'm saying is, and here's the old-fashioned America in me.
If you're coming to the United States as an immigrant, number one, come legally, and we welcome you.
Number two, prepare to assimilate yourself that this is the new country.
Do not bring the old country with you.
The reason you left the old country is it wasn't worth staying.
Isn't that true?
Otherwise, go back.
If you're coming here to be in America, understand that the idea of America is what we carry around in our heads.
That's the most important thing.
And if you carry around in your head that you're a fill-in-the-blank from some other country, but you just happen to be here with a job, that's not going to make America greater.
What's going to make America greater is you becoming an even better as an immigrant, an even better American than I am.
That's how America has become great.
So now you have the new Mexican president, Felipe Calderon, saying to continue speaking Spanish in the United States is to fulfill one's patriotic duty.
That what we have to do is witness a quote greater Mexico, unquote.
In other words, reclaiming the United States for Mexico.
If you've had enough of that, you're joining me.
I certainly have.
I'm Roger Hedgecock taking your calls when we return on the rush show after this.
All right, one more if you can handle it, and then we'll get to calls here on this subject.
Three members of the Mexican Congress, this is announced in the Mexican media, and I don't think it's been announced in the American media.
Three members of the Mexican Congress representing each of the three major parties in Mexico are coming to Washington on February 6th and 7th, and they are scheduled to meet with Congress members Joe Baca, Luis Gutierrez, Hilda Solas, and Nancy Pelosi.
The subject of the meeting between Pelosi and these other members of Congress, members of the House, and the three members of the Mexico Congress, Mexican Congress, the subject of the meeting is to, quote, work toward a migratory accord before the U.S. presidential elections advance any further.
In other words, they are going to come to Congress to tell us what immigration reform will look like.
You can guess.
By the way, their next stop after meeting with Pelosi and friends is to fly to Chicago to visit Elvira Arellano, the illegal alien holed up in a Methodist church.
They're going to meet with Mexican-oriented public policy groups, think tanks, and pressure groups while here in the United States, again, to mobilize political support for the Mexican point of view being represented in what comes out of Congress as immigration reform.
Now, more power to them.
They have the absolute right to do it, but they don't have the absolute right to do it as they're doing it now in complete secrecy.
Have you heard this anywhere, anywhere else in the media, that the Mexican government is deliberately intervening to shape immigration policy in this country?
Do you think that's going to be in our favor?
Let me tell you a number, and the number will tell you all you need to know about the border.
This last year, remittances, that is money sent by people working in the United States back to Mexico exceeded $23 billion.
It is the second largest, after oil, source of revenue to the Mexican economy.
It has become more valuable, it is more dollars than generated by all the tourism in Mexico, which is now number three.
These remittances allow the Mexican economy to continue to even exist.
And yet, the same people who send $23 billion back to Mexico are the same people who are demanding free medical care because they can't afford anything else, subsidized housing and Section 8 programs, et cetera, et cetera.
They've got to be helped, they've got to be subsidized because they're poor and they make very little.
Well, they make enough to send $23 billion back to the old country.
Now, again, more power to them.
But shouldn't we, the people of the United States as a whole, have the right, say, to tack a little tax on that to make up for the fact that our emergency rooms are closing, our schools are overcrowded, our freeways here and many other places in the country are clogged with cars of people driving illegally because they don't get driver's licenses who are here in the country illegally.
So I just think that some of these issues, maybe we get it first here in California, but believe me, this is coming to a neighborhood near you.
Michael in Fayetteville, Arkansas is next.
Hi, Mike.
Hey, documented non-migratory dittos from the heartland of America and the homeland of Tysons and lots of traffic issues.
Yep, I understand what you're saying.
What's up?
Hey, congratulations on the Oceanside Chargers not losing the Super Bowl.
Oh, that just hurt.
That has twisted the knife, man.
I tell you, the Chargers who should have gone all the way didn't go all the way.
And we have a wait till next year attitude, and they may indeed move to Oceanside and get a new stadium there, but we'll see.
I've had to wait till late next year for 30 years with those guys.
I'll tell you what.
I understand.
Bring Dan Fouts back.
Well, my point is, my question is, Roger, I want to pick your brain on this.
Why should I, you know, I've been a real good Republican, I guess.
Why should I continue to be a Republican when we have police officers defending our border, going to prison and not being let go, not being by the President?
Not being pardoned, and then a Republican Party which refuses, steadfastly refuses to fix the border problem, yet loses the Hispanic vote last vote anyway.
Why, Roger, should I not become a Buchananite, an isolationist?
Well, because isolationism isn't going to work in the modern world under any circumstance.
We do need to defend our borders, but I think also trade and that kind of stuff is good.
And I think legal immigration is good.
I'm not one of these people saying that we should just stop anybody from coming to the United States.
So I think, Michael, that there is such a thing as being too extreme on this issue.
But there isn't.
Your first comment is absolutely right.
And I've never yet gotten a straight answer from any Republican because they don't know.
And I've asked them all, all the leadership, all the way up to and including the president, you know, why is it that you guys, in effect, are constantly a force for opening the border and not securing it?
And I get no real great answers.
I'm sorry, Michael.
This Republican Party, the Bush Republican Party, is an open border party.
I'm Roger Hedgecock in for Rush back after this.
Thank you, Rush, for the privilege of filling in.
I'm Roger Hedgecock.
And I just wanted to end, and I promised myself I would, end the show with good news because George Bush has it exactly right on the economy.
Exactly right.
We are not falling behind Europe.
I saw this in another format a couple of days ago.
Productivity rising over 2% for the year 2006.
Labor costs up 1.7%.
You know where we're at?
Let me just give it to you.
Productivity is improving.
Inflation is trending down.
Real compensation is rising sharply.
The gross domestic product growing faster than expected.
We are in the economy's sweet spot.
And we're in it because the share of our paycheck going to government has remained steady and trended down because of the tax cuts in George Bush's administration.
It is giving the United States the best economy in the history of the world.
Enjoy it.
▲
Export Selection