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May 11, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:46
May 11, 2007, Friday, Hour #2
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Hey, folks, and welcome back.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program here on the one and only EIB Network, and it is Friday live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Yeah.
You know the drill.
Open line Friday when we go to the phones, the show is yours.
You can talk about whatever you want.
If there's something out there that you think needs to be discussed on this show that hasn't been, I can't imagine what that would be, but if there is something that you think we have been lagging on, well then take care of it.
Question or comment, whatever.
Open line Friday.
It's fun.
The telephone number 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIB net.com.
All right.
A couple things here.
I uh we we played this soundbite in the previous hour from Martha Raditz.
Uh she was on C-SPAN's uh Washington Journal today, and she got a call from uh uh a guy in South Bennadiana who uh tried to pin her down if she's a Republican or Democrat or an independent, and I'm I'm neither one.
I would never discuss that.
No journalist ever would.
We're we're we're objective.
We we I would never discuss.
Well, can you tell me if you ever voted uh Democrat or Republican?
I would never tell you that.
No journalist would ever say anything like this at all.
Not gonna call talk shows and go on talk shows until you I voted.
Well, caller said if if wouldn't wouldn't it just cement your objectivity?
I mean, you say you vote Republican or vote Democrat, but you're still objective.
Oh no, well, no journalist would ever talk about those of you who call C-SPAN when they I want to help out here.
You're never gonna get the answer you want if you ask these journalists if they're Republican or Democrat or independent or uh how they voted.
You're gonna get the runaround.
The next time that Brian Lamb or anybody at C-SPAN has a journalist on where they're taking phone calls, here's what you call and ask them.
Do you support life?
Are you pro-life or pro-choice?
Do you support gun ownership?
How do you feel about tax cuts?
Are you in favor of America winning the war on terror?
Do you support drilling for oil in an war?
Uh ask them specific issue-related questions.
And then, and they're not going to answer those either, but the the way they will squirm out of those is gonna be it'd be even tougher.
Well, I can't answer that question.
Uh you mean you tell me as an American you have no interest in whether the country wins?
Well, as a journalist, I can't compromise my standards.
Uh really am not allowed to choose.
You'll hear stuff like that, and of course, that's when you will know that it's all BS.
Because of course, every American has opinions about this.
I mean, these type of people do, the thinking engaged types.
So this is this is a great illustration here of the kind of learning that happens and uh is is available to you from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Now, my friends, I am in a dilemma today.
I saw a story, it has news that I didn't I I was shocked to see this.
The divorce rate is down.
Uh despite the common notion that America is plagued by a divorce epidemic, the national per capita divorce rate has declined steadily since its peak year in 1981 and is now at its lowest level since 1970.
Even those who study marriage and work to make it more successful can't decide whether the trend is grounds for celebration or cynicism.
And I must say that I fall into that category.
Uh well, I'm not sure whether it's good news.
Uh but see, I'm a thinking, engaged person.
I can't take myself out of the story.
Now, the story is kind of funny.
Uh, this is uh an AP story.
Other researchers have documented what they call the divorce divide.
Did you know there's a divorce divide?
And there is, and what do you think it is?
Well, uh the divorce divide uh contends that divorce rates are indeed falling substantively among college uh educated couples, but not among less affluent, less educated.
So uh the rich, college educated, are staying married, but the poor and the less educated, those with subprime loans, those people are still getting divorced.
The other ones know how much it's going to cost them.
They stay together.
The less affluent, the cost is really not a factor there.
I think it's a factor.
It's...
it's, it, Well, one researcher whose studies detected the divorce divide is University of Maryland sociologist Steve Martin.
Now comparing marriages from the early 70s with those of the early 90s, Martin found that the rate of breakups within 10 years of marriage dropped by one-third among college-educated women while remaining stable among- Well, now wait a minute.
Where are the men in this?
You can't get divorced.
A woman just can't get divorced.
A man has to be divorced at the same time.
There's not enough gay marriages out there legalized for this to be factored in statistically.
with.
Here's my problem with this.
Divorce has been very, very good to me.
In terms, last night, I mentioned earlier that I was I was at a um a dinner party.
Good friend here on Palm Beach dinner party.
And this guy has a a it he's he's got a style of running a dinner party.
He's he he likes to stir the pot.
And at some point during dinner, you just know that he's going to ask the table a question that's designed to get the fur flying.
And of course, when I'm there, I get the question.
And last night there were some very ardent fundraisers and supporters of Hillary Clinton and others who were not ardent supporters of Hillary Clinton.
And so the question that was asked, Rush, please tell us what you dislike the most about Hillary Clinton.
Well, of course, this is a no-win.
So I said, well, reminding the table that our host loves to stir things up at his dinner parties, I said, before I answer the question, I would like to toast a host and uh the and and hostess uh for another wonderful dinner party and a great eclectic group of people I've enjoyed meeting, and some of these people I've wanted to get to know for a long time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You know, I just being my usual charming self.
And I answered the question.
And I said, it's difficult.
Say that there's something I dislike the most about Hillary Clinton.
I said, Frankly, uh uh it in in a in a in a weird way, you know, she's she's had to eat a whole lot of excrement sandwiches in her life, and some days she's had mustard to put on them, and some days she's not.
Uh, you know, I just try to be as diplomatic as.
I don't want to.
You know, I leave the politics at the office when I go.
I want to have fun at these things.
So I was and I'm halfway through the answer.
I went alone, which is always more fun for me.
I went alone, there was a woman sitting next to me who I'd not met, met her just that night, last night.
And halfway through this answer, she pinches my thigh.
And I stopped.
And I told the table, she just pinched my thigh, and we're not even married.
She was trying to get me to shut up, and we're not even married.
And of course, that broke the ice, and everybody started laughing.
And I was thinking, if we had been married, what would the what would the pinch have been?
Kid probably kicked me a number of times.
And until I shut up.
But last night I was not obligated to shut up.
I was the I was I was not obligated to do anything.
I was free to comment on it.
And it just stopped dead in my tracks.
And how many times you husbands, when you're in such situations and you're talking, you know, your wife nudges you, kicks you out of the table, how many of you start boiling?
But you shut up.
You shut up, you make apologies or whatever.
That's not gonna happen to me.
So here's the thing about I was telling Snerdley earlier.
Um if I ever lose my mind, I've got it, I've got five people I trust, and I've told them all.
If I lose my mind again, and I tell you that I'm thinking of getting married, I want you to put me in a straitjacket and take me to the beach at high tide.
I'm I'm I'm serious about it.
If that happens, here's what I'm gonna do.
I'm I'm just gonna buy the woman a house and break up with her.
Because that'll be the end result anyway.
Uh look, I've been getting some emails here, folks.
People misunderstood one aspect of the story I just told.
The woman seated to my left who pinched me on the thigh to uh I've got so many emails from women.
You're gonna let that psycho BI itch determine your future.
She was sweet.
She was trying to be helpful.
She was she was but she was just being wifey, and we're not married.
That's all I'm saying.
She was trying to be...
Oh, she...
Sigh.
Anyway, um, ladies and gentlemen, the divorce rate of the well, the primary reason divorce rates now is because I haven't gotten married again.
And that's something that's not in the story, but I have to throw it in there for the things here to be statistically uh accurate.
Philadelphia, Ryan, you're next on the uh edition of Open Line Friday today.
Great to have you.
Great to talk to you.
It's a pleasure.
Um couple things well, one thing.
I just wanted to talk about the uh Democrats repealing the or not repealing the tax cuts.
Um hang on just a second.
Ryan.
HR I did not pinch her on the way.
What what is I can't people will not stop talking to me about it.
I wanted to, but it didn't.
I was chivalrous in the gentleman.
Sorry about that, Ryan.
Proceed.
Not a problem.
The uh Democrats let the tax cuts expire.
How this is gonna affect what I think is their base.
You've got five million extra people that are gonna get put back on the tax rolls here.
The ten percent bracket goes to fifteen, it's fifty percent increase.
Marriage penalties, you know, gonna be repealed, the release is gonna be repealed.
Child tax credit's gonna be cut in half.
That's gonna cost people eight hundred dollars if they have two kids.
And it's just a ton of stuff that nobody's talking about.
And this is their base, and you know, sixty percent of the people in this country don't pay taxes, so they don't, you know, feel it when they say they're not they're gonna let the tax cuts expire.
Well, they don't pay income taxes.
They're they're they're paying their payroll taxes and the sales taxes.
I mean, we're taxed to death.
We there's so much wealth produced in this country and so much revenue generated to the government.
But you are exactly right.
Now, we we have uh since you brought it up, I've got the story somewhere here in the stack.
We talked about this last week.
I don't know why this story is making news today.
We had it last week or the week before.
The story about all the uh the new revenue that flowed into the government, the tax receipts in April, an all-time record.
I'm glad it made news twice, although I don't know what it is that's newsworthy about it the second time around, or why it's it's being reported as though it's brand new, and it's it's actually two weeks old or ten days.
Uh and you would think the Democrats run around and they tell people we need to raise taxes because we need to fund the government.
Well, fund the government.
The r the government is taking in record amounts of money after tax cuts.
So you would ask, well, d what don't the Democrats want this money?
And you have to understand, and Ryan, I can tell you do, based on the content of your call, it's not about the money.
They're gonna get the money.
There's so much money.
It's about control.
It is about preventing people from becoming wealthy.
And getting as much as they can.
The income tax prevents wealth.
Now you might say, well, aren't they taxing themselves?
I mean, uh look at a lot of these there is not a tax on wealth in this country.
If you have let's say you're Nancy Pelosi and her husband, or Diane Feinstein and her husband, or your Al Gore and his wife.
You look at Edwards, all these rich Democrats who score look at the m kind of money these people make after they go into politics.
And if you've got a combined community asset uh with with you and your spouse of uh of fifty fifty million dollars, you don't pay that's that that's already been taxed once, however, you've acquired it.
There's no tax on your wealth, there's a tax on income.
And so when you when you get into these kinds of asset pools, uh you're talking cap gains, if anything, if you take it.
Uh if you live on the uh income offer, but it's it's it's hardly uh it's not much money.
Also, raising taxes on the rich does not affect the rich.
It affects people who are on their way to becoming wealthy.
It affects wage earners.
Uh it it's it really, and and the Democrats use class envy for this.
It's the same old thing.
They they tell these uh middle class people, well, you know, we're gonna raise taxes on the rich, we're gonna make it and then the middle class folks, good, good.
I want them to suffer.
When the bottom line is, how does the fact that somebody might pay a few more dollars in taxes help somebody else who's doesn't have nearly as much money?
It's like when your mom always told you, make sure you eat everything on your plate, they're starving kids in China.
Okay, mom, if I clean the plate, is there some kid in China gonna be rubbing his belly talking about how good he feels?
You know, it's a straw dog.
They're they're playing on.
I got slapped for that, by the way, when I said that to my call me SAS.
But I mean, these people play on these class envy things.
Like what the the stock market, when it hit it all-time high, you know what Nancy Pelosi said?
Well, this is just another indication of how supply side doesn't work.
This is the Bush policy making the rich richer.
And somebody said, 'Ms Pelosi, do you know how many Americans own stock now?
Do you know that only over fifty-five percent of Americans are are um in the stock market, either with their 401ks or whatever.' It doesn't matter.
They're not the ones making all this money.
It's just it's it's classic.
And they can't wait to let for these tax cuts to expire.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
And you know what hurts them even worse is the real estate tax.
They talk about subprime lending.
When you're going to reassess someone's house and double their taxes in one year, that destroyed the family making sixty, seventy, eighty grand a year.
Oh, no question about it.
And these are the people that they that they claim to defend.
That's just a load.
Well, yeah, I uh it's it's uh you got a you got a roaring economy out there.
There is wealth and opportunity like never before in this country.
And I'll I'll tell you another personal story to illustrate this.
Sturdley asked me a minute ago, we were talking about the subprime subprime uh lending crisis, the with a caller from Miami.
And uh during the break after the call, Snurley said, How old were you when you bought your first house?
You're in your twenties, right?
I said, Oh, God no, it was 35 or 36.
And it was uh a little hundred thousand dollar starter house out in Sacramento, and the guy that built the house and sold it to me said, Well, you know, they don't nobody let you make any money until you're 40 in this country.
That's that you gotta be 40 before they'll accept you as solid, responsible, and so forth.
And that that was an old rule of thumb.
Uh today kids coming out of college expect to have the house that they grew up in when they're 25 or 26, and some of them do.
I mean, uh the 80s were a great boom time for the country, but it's even better now.
And yet all we hear every day is the sordid tales of doom and gloom and economic woe and despair, when the opportunities that that exist for people are just unparalleled, and it's a crying shame that more Americans are not inspired to go out and access their part of it.
The Democrats say, well, I mean, it's a finite pie.
It's not.
The pie constantly grows.
Look at our GDP.
It constantly grows.
The Democrats believe in a zero-sum game.
If somebody gets a raise, somebody had to get fired.
Uh if uh if if if somebody grabs a big piece of the pie, then that's a smaller uh rest of the pie that other people have to divvy up, and it's not how it works.
But they want people to think it is because they live and breathe on class envy.
They want to take this economy and destroy it.
Now, I'm not saying that that's their desire, their word, but you've got a roaring, robust economy.
You've got tax receipts rolling in as the result of tax cuts.
Uh, and they want to interrupt that.
They want to stop that.
They want to raise taxes as a percentage on certain people so they can go out and get political points for it, and to be damned with what the economic result is or the economic impact of it is, uh, simply because they want control.
This is why folks I I hate I'm not trying to be pessimistic about this.
It's realistic is is realism is what call for here.
And I know there's all kinds of tax reform plans.
You got fair tax, you've got flat tax, you've got whatever the hell it do you really those of you who are thinking engaged people, do you really expect members of Congress To give up the single greatest power they have, and that power is the social architecture involved in writing the tax code.
And I I would I would love for it to happen, but the name of the game in politics is getting elected and getting re-elected and amassing power.
And just giving it away.
I mean, I I can tell you this.
The Democrats are never going to do as support anything like that.
It's going to take such a large Republican majority in both the House and Senate with a Republican president to get that kind of tax reform done.
That's why elections matter and have consequences.
Ryan, thanks for the call.
Brief timeout.
We'll be back and continue after this.
Sorry, folks, I was reading emails from women who are alternate chuckling or they are uh outraged.
One of them said, Do you do you hate women, Russia?
Why would you just be honest?
And just no, folks, no, it's quite the opposite.
It is quite the opposite.
It's I I uh uh not at uh the furthest possible thing from the truth is that I hate or dislike women.
And by the way, I'm what when I talk about divorce, I am not I am not blaming the women I've married.
That's not their fault uh that uh look at I've got to stop here, but I don't I'm just no good at it, okay.
Pure and simple.
Uh Audrey in uh South Arizona.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Nice to have you with us.
Oh, thank you.
Yes.
It's super getting through.
I I'm so I'm shocked.
Well, I'm glad you made it.
Me too.
Uh I just wanted to say a comment about Hillary Clinton.
Yes.
I can't stand her.
Uh the woman that has a husband that disgraced the whole country.
And she's running for president, and she's mocking Italians and all different dialects, whatever she has.
Makes me sick.
I I just don't understand it.
It makes you sick, you said?
Makes me a thick.
I had to put that in.
Uh well, in fact, you know, she has uh you you you're Mike, do you have this uh this sh you uh we have noted this in Mrs. Clinton uh that she she has this dialect system that uh she's uh she's offering to oh, would you like to hear this?
No, I heard it.
Well, since you brought it up, I can't tease the audience here.
We're gonna listen to it again here.
Sure.
Something in that uh parody uh talked about health care, you know, after no pay at a bill.
I was uh I was reading Ed Morris's blog today, Captain's Quarters, and I came across something fascinating.
A new study by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
Now listen to this.
The Karolinska Institute in Sweden shows that the American health care system outperforms the socialized systems in Europe in getting new medicines to cancer patients.
The difference saves lives and the existing Western European systems force people to die at higher rates from the same cancers.
Although the story that's in the UK telegraph, and uh and they bury that lead.
Here's here's part of what it says in the story.
The researchers studied Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, and the U.S., as well as 19 European countries with a total population of 984 million, and looked at access to 67 newer cancer drugs.
They found that the proportions of female cancer patients surviving five years beyond diagnosis in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, 71%, 64%, 63%, 63% respectively.
In the UK, it was 53%.
Among men, the proportion still alive five years in the same countries were 53, 50, 53, 48.
And the UK, it was 43%.
The survivability rates beyond five years of diagnosis in the United States are far in X excess of all of these socialized countries with socialized medicine.
Here's the point, though, and it takes a while in this story for this to be for it to show up.
But here's a here's this here's the reference in this story about the American system.
Dr. Nils or Niles Wilking, a clinical oncologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said, our report highlights that in many countries new drugs are not reaching patients quickly enough, and that this is having an adverse impact on patient survival.
Where you live can determine whether you receive the best available treatment or not.
To some extent, this is determined by economic factors, but much of the variation between countries remains unexplained, quote unquote.
In the U.S., he writes, we have found that the survival of cancer patients is significantly related to the introduction of new oncology drugs.
The proportion of colorectal cancer patients, for example, with access to the drug Eviston was ten times higher in the U.S. than it was in Europe, with the UK having a lower uptake than the European average.
United States health care saves more lives than socialized medicine, and yet socialized medicine is one of the building blocks of the Democrat Party's agenda, particularly Mrs. Bill Clinton's agenda.
Now, it's the same thing with tax revenue that we were just discussing.
If current tax rates are producing record amounts of revenue, why in the and the rack rapid economic growth, why would you change it?
If the U.S. healthcare system is the best in the world, despite its flaws.
If it's the best in the world, and people who come down with deadly diseases survive much longer here, because of access to drugs much sooner and much cheaper than people who live in socialized countries have access to it.
Why in the world would you change it?
Well, there's a simple answer.
Socialists control.
They want as much control over us as they can get.
It's about power.
It's about in enlarging the state.
It's about making you dependent.
It's it's about, and that eliminates your threatening their power.
The less wealth you have, the less mobility freedom, the less of a threat you are to their power.
And this is liberalism through and through.
Now you might ask, well, what how come so many average Americans are liberals and they're willing to give up this power?
Because they're dupes.
I'm talking about the leaders.
I'm talking about the people in Washington.
I'm talking about the think tank leaders, I'm talking about the special interest groups.
Liberals in this country, that these these doofuses that write these hateful comments on the on internet blogs, they're just you know, they're just unhappy people in general.
They want everybody else to be miserable with them anyway.
Uh, and they're probably jealous of people who do better than them, and they want those people taking down a peg or two.
They want everything the same.
Everything he was said, there's no no uh inequality, no inequity.
They want outcome of results.
They're sickos, and they're miserable and they're unhappy, and they want everybody to join them in that.
But this is this is it's it's you know, you talk about ideology, liberals believe this, conservatives believe this.
It's really very, very simple.
Conservatives believe in individual liberty and freedom and ambition so that people can become the best they can be because it is believed that the greatest society and the greatest culture, the greatest country is achieved by the greatest number of people pursuing excellence.
Liberals uh don't have that faith in people, and they don't want that kind of freedom.
They want to be in charge, they want to have the power, and they want people dependent because that is what enriches them.
In every which way you can imagine.
Quick timeout, we'll be back.
Stay with us.
Lou Rolls.
The Hawk from Chicago.
You'll never find dun dun dun-da-da.
And that's where the song should stop.
Uh Dale in uh in Harrison Township in Michigan.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Nice to have you with us, sir.
Uh, great to hear you, uh, Mr. Limbaugh.
It's an honor to speak to you.
Uh Detroit uh retired Detroit police sergeant did out.
Well, great to have you with us today.
Uh, good to be here.
Uh, Mr. Surdley said to get right to it.
Uh, you were cracking me up with your commentary about divorce uh a little while ago.
I'm your age, I'm 55, maybe a little younger.
I've been divorced twice as well.
And the question is uh why are divorces so expensive?
Because they're worth it.
Because they're worth it.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, we're just scoring all kinds of points today, aren't we?
At uh heading into Mother's Day.
Um by the way, at this dinner party last night, I gotta tell you this.
See what you think of this.
There were uh four women, all uh all married, and you know what they're doing for Mother's Day?
They're leaving their families.
These babes are in their forties, leaving their families and heading to the islands.
And husbands get the kids for Mother's Day.
That's what they're giving themselves for Mother's Day.
What do you think of that?
I'll tell you, I think it's cool.
Uh people think that the Democrat-led Congress is doing just as dreary a job as President Bush.
Following four months of bitter political standoffs that have seen little progress on Iraq and a host of domestic.
Do you really think the low congressional approvals because they haven't done anything on Iraq?
I think it's just the exact opposite.
I I think the drive-bys are fooling themselves here.
I think Congress's low approval ratings are precisely because they are trying to lose the war.
I have never bought this notion that a majority of the American people wants out of Iraq.
They want to lose the war.
I don't believe it.
The Democrats say that's what last year's elections meant.
I don't believe it for a second.
I think that people like Pelosi and Reed and the faces of the Democrat Congress are getting low approval numbers because people are sick and tired of doom and gloom and negativism and Bush sucks and Bush lies and all this, and trying to engineer defeat.
I think that's the dirty little secret here.
Thirty-five percent, only 35% today approve of how Congress is handling its job.
That's down five points in a month.
That gives lawmakers the same bleak approval rating as President Bush, who's been mired at about that level since uh since last fall.
Now, Representative Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, who heads the House GOP's campaign committee, say it's mostly a rock, plus a lack of progress in other areas.
Uh, not good numbers for an incumbent.
It doesn't matter if you have an R or D next to your name.
Uh this is bad news when a Republican thinks that low congressional approvals are because of a rock.
Yeah, it may be because of a rock, but it ain't because we haven't pulled out of there.
If it for folks, if it were, there that they would have had no trouble overriding President Bush's veto.
They would have not had to spend 24 billion dollars in pork to pass the true production bill in the first place or withdrawal bill.
This is all the smoke screen.
It's like those eleven those moderates that went up to see Bush.
You know, the White House is fit to be tied over this.
And it's it's about time, by the way.
Um the White House is is is uh is firing back at a couple of these congressmen uh for going to Tim Russert and spilling the beans about what happened in the meeting.
As well they should.
Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of GOP Republicans at the White House yesterday after details of a contentious meeting between the president and Republican legislators were leaked to the media.
Representatives Ray Lahood, Mark Kirk, both of Illinois, attracted the ire of White House officials for allegedly speaking to reporters about a Tuesday meeting between Bush and moderate Republicans.
They're now calling them centrist Republicans.
You know, the first day they talked about this, they were talking all about Republicans with it.
Now they're identifying because I did it yesterday.
These were all moderates that went up there.
And I'm gonna tell you, folks, it's very, very simple.
If these Republicans really cared about Iraq, and if their real mission in going to see Bush was to try to get this off the dime, they wouldn't have said a word about this to the media.
The fact that they came out of there and called Russert and gave him the exclusive means that these people are just well, you know, there's there's you know what a poll dancer is.
You ever watch the Sopranos?
Poll dancer P-O-L-E.
These guys are poll dancers, P-O-L-L.
They have demeaned themselves for polls.
They are scared to death about their own re-elections, and they came out of this meeting.
They think they've got to go up, have a meeting with Bush, tell him what for, and then come back and tell the drive-by media, and they think that's gonna help them with their constituents.
Did they learn Nothing from last November's elections.
Memo to Republicans, moderate or not, your voters don't want you to sound like Democrats.
They don't want you to vote like Democrats.
They don't want you to spend like Democrats.
They don't want you to be arrogant like Democrats.
They want you to be conservatives.
And they want you to be Republicans.
And if you can't figure that out after hat what happened last November, then all is lost for you the next November election.
I mean, this is it's it's just mind-boggling to watch these guys parade up there.
They didn't folks, they couldn't have cared less about Iraq.
If they did, if they really that was what really bugged them, you we would not know of this meeting.
But they went up there purposely to make themselves look like tough guys.
Which is hard for moderates to do.
And look at how they chose to do it by beating up on Bush.
Well, how hard is that?
Everybody else is beating up on Bush.
That's not tough at all.
Back in just a sec.
Hit the button, Rush.
All right, we're back.
El Rushball at EIB Network open line Friday to uh Pelly in South Carolina.
This is Marie.
I'm glad you called.
Hi, happy Friday.
Same to you.
I was asked to get right to it.
I called you in 1994 as a recently divorced mother of a two-year-old.
Yeah.
Um it was in my second semester of college, and some professors had convinced me to go on welfare because I had been falling asleep during class.
And I called you to ask you, you know, don't you think that makes more sense than falling asleep in class and getting poor grades?
And I was promptly excoriated, which kind of hacked me off.
Wait, wait a minute.
You excoriated by me?
Yes, sir.
That was tough love.
Well, I um three months later, I got a letter from the welfare office.
This was before welfare reform.
And they said, you know, you have to show up at the office on such and such a date and plan to be there all day.
Well, that happened to be finals day for me.
So I called and I said, you know, I can't do that.
That's my finals.
Can we reschedule?
You know, what can we do?
They refused to reschedule.
Um, they said if if I couldn't find a sitter, then I could get out of it.
And I said, but that's a lie.
That's not my problem.
And I went as far up the chain as I could and eventually ended up telling the person highest up the chain to where he could put his welfare check and went back to work.
Um I ended up graduating Magna Cum Loud, 5e to Kappa, and um that experience has actually helped me.
I broke my back in 2001.
I'm still working, I'm still moving.
Um, so it served me very well.
The point is, these people want you to be dependent.
Right.
They did not want me to go and get away.
I remember you.
I but you I tell you why I remember you when you mentioned your your your your your your daughter.
I remember and the professor telling you it would make more sense to go on welfare, and that burned me.
I remember this.
Well, it was it was a tough thing to do.
It was hard to work because I ended up working third shift.
Well, look, you know, I know I people need to hear your story again.
Can you hang on through the break?
Sure.
One of the great things about this program and calls like yours, you can end up inspiring a lot of people here.
And I want I want I want to go through this from the beginning again and ask you some questions.
You get into detail about it.
Because this is this is good.
I'm glad you called.
Please be patient.
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