Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Boy, what a week this was.
You know, I was looking forward to today.
It's Friday, Open Line Friday.
It's sort of a light-hearted little day to speed off into the three-day Memorial Day weekend.
But as I was conducting a show prep last night and this morning, it may be difficult to spend all the time on the lightheartedness.
Of course, when we get to the design of vagina story that's out there, you haven't heard about that, Dawn?
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Yes, Snurbly walks in here.
Have you heard about this designer vagina?
I call it Design a Vagina story.
It's about surgery that women are having and it poses problems to both men and women.
I'll explain it later.
So I said, yeah, I saw it and I came in here.
You know, I had that chocolate vagina that that feminist group sent me from up to the Great North.
I can't find it.
Somebody stole it.
Anyway, greetings, my friends.
We are here.
It's Open Line Friday.
I am Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
You know what?
Open Line Friday is the rules are these.
When we go to the phones, the program is all yours.
Monday through Thursday, we only talk about things that interest me or things that I care about.
But on Friday, I waive that rule, being the benevolent dictator that I am.
Take a great career risk, a media career risk here.
There's a highly trained broadcast specialist turning over content to rank amateurs, lovable rank amateurs, is fun.
And we look forward to it.
We'll have a best of show on Monday, by the way.
HR, do you know what the best of show is?
Hi.
What do you know what the best of show is on Monday?
I mean, what is it, Mike?
What's the best of February 20?
Oh, there's been a better show than that since February 20th.
There's a couple of kick-ass shows.
Well, I know they're all good, but I mean, well, whatever.
I don't remember the date it was.
I just know it was more recent than that.
Folks, I was not going to start with immigration today.
I was going to try to give it just a little break.
I was going to move it to the second hour until I saw the audio soundbite roster.
I have to move it up into the first hour.
This is just incredible.
Before we get to this soundbite, though, I had this story in the stack yesterday.
You may have seen it or heard about it already.
It's an AP story.
And it is this.
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions decline.
Now, wait.
I know a lot of people have, oh, wow, this is going to seal the doom of the global warming extremist.
Not so fast.
Ladies and gentlemen, a mild winter followed by a cool summer caused U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to decline last year.
Mild winter, cool summer.
Carbon dioxide emissions declined.
This, according to the Energy Department, the results were hailed to the White House as support for its global warming policies.
Now, this is a dangerous game here, folks, because the story is what it is.
There's no question.
However, we are not dealing with honest people in a political way.
We are dealing with religious fanatics who are perpetrating a religious hoax, and that is global warming.
And so I doubt that they're going to be able to get away with it, but I wouldn't put it past them to try saying, well, see, our policies are already working.
Our carbon offset policies are working.
We have encouraged people for years to reduce their carbon footprints.
Changing to the incandescent light bulbs is working.
People driving hybrids is working.
That's what they're going to say.
Now, keep in mind, these are stats from last year, 2006.
So, people would have had to be making massive changes in their carbon.
It's not possible for human behavior to cause this.
No matter what we do, we cannot come close to replicating the amount of carbon dioxide the natural resources on this earth exhibit and put out themselves.
But I just want to warn you: well, you look at this as good news.
I'm going to tell you this is ripe for this.
The bunch of religious fanatics that are global warming people to spin this to their favor.
Also, the snowiest spring on Pike's Peak in Colorado in a decade has occurred this spring.
Bar Camp recorded 231 inches of snow this winter.
It only saw 50 inches of snow in 2006.
This, of course, will always be, or also be blamed, blamed on global warming and so forth.
This goes together with all the headlines we gave you yesterday: the 21 deaths due to the cold in South Africa, all over Sub-Saharan Africa.
They've got a cold wave in Australia, too, and it's just driving people nuts.
It's one of the coldest periods this time of year that the southern hemisphere has had in many, many, many minutes.
All right.
Time for a sea.
I told you so.
I thought this wouldn't happen until after the immigration bill, if it passes, passed.
I didn't think this will happen until after the president signed it.
But I'm holding here.
My formerly nicotine-stained fingers an AP story out of Atlanta.
Now, one of the things I've always told you, I've always said people, well, Rush, this bill, this immigration business is great because these people are going to have to pay fines.
You're going to have to pay $5,000 fines.
They're going to have to show up and report.
I mean, this is not amnesty, Rush.
You just don't understand it.
You are a Yahoo.
By the way, I want to welcome to the ranks of Yahoos today Ed Meese, William F. Buckley, and George Will.
They also are of the same point of view and frame of mind as I on this piece of legislation that's winding its way through the Senate right now, the Comprehensive Destroy the Republican Party Act of 2007.
Mr. Buckley, George Will, and Ed Meese.
By the way, Ed Meese at the Heritage Foundation, we posted on the website just before the program.
It's about a six-minute video that Ed Meese did from the studios of the Heritage Foundation.
Some of the simplest, most plain-spoken words explaining what's wrong with this bill that I have seen.
I want you all to see it.
So when you grab it a moment, go to rushlimbaugh.com and look at it.
It's a YouTube video.
We link right to it, but you've got to see this because it's just, it's one of the most simple, easily understandable explanations of this whole boondoggle that there is.
So Mr. Meese, now a Yahoo.
Well, because somebody out there called all of us who oppose the bill Yahoos.
I don't know who it was.
Somebody on our side, some conservative called us Yahoos.
Now we're happy to be Yahoos out there.
Happy to welcome Bill Buckley, who has a piece today on the immigration bill.
He's now a Yahoo, a nativist, you know, all these terms that are being bandied about.
Told yesterday a guy called up, is this $5,000 stuff, Rush?
This is good.
$5,000 is never going to happen.
One of two ways.
The $5,000 is only if you seek citizenship.
If you're an illegal, the minute you are, the minute this bill is signed into law, you are legal.
You're not a citizen, but you're legal.
There's amnesty.
You are legal.
It's only if you pursue the path to citizenship.
It's only if you come out of the shadows, as Senator Kennedy and President Bush say, and want citizenship that you're going to have to go through this rigmarole.
But I never believed that they have to pay the five grand anyway.
Never believed it.
I told you people, you are my witnesses.
I have said this over and over again, that by the time we get to that point, Libs will be saying, oh, that's so punitive.
Why we're going to be taking money out of the mounds of starving babies and so forth.
Lo and behold, I didn't think, I didn't think that we'd start getting these whining complaints about it till after the bill became law, but here we are.
The Associated Press today, illegal immigrants could fall prey to loan sharks and other unscrupulous lenders if they have to pay $5,000 in fines and thousands more in fees and back taxes as required under the immigration reform measure now before Congress.
Some advocates are warning.
It's not subprime lending in the illegal market.
Many immigrants work low-wage jobs, have virtually no assets.
As a result, they often have poor credit and are forced to borrow on the street.
We're concerned about the potential for fraud, said Beatrice Ibara, who studies Hispanic finances for the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group and a tepid supporter.
Tepid?
Tepid supporter?
Try the pots boiling over.
They'll find a way to pay, but how?
Some say the measure also could lead to abuse by employers who could offer to pay employees fines in return for repayment arrangements that could be difficult to satisfy, leading to what would amount to indentured servitude.
Oh, see these things, that's right.
These capitalist pig employers are going to rape these people.
They'll pay the five grand for them and set up a repayment schedule to keep them in dentured servitude for the rest of their work period.
This is this $5,000 never going to see the light of day.
They're setting the table for it now.
It is not exactly clear how much time the immigrants would have to pay the fines and fees to achieve legal.
They don't have to pay anything to become legal.
These idiots at the AP, who wrote this?
Giovanna Del Orto.
Well, Giovanna, they don't have to come up with any fines and fees to become legal.
All we have to do is sit around and become legal.
That's only a factor if they choose citizenship.
A young immigrant mother of a two-year-old U.S.-born daughter, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of deportation, said, yes, $5,000 is a lot of money, but if they gave us the opportunity, we'll see how we can get on.
She's a native of Guerrero, Mexico, said she has no idea how she'd get the money, which could amount to $3,000 for the initial visa application, $4,000 plus back taxes for a green card.
So anyway, worried about loan sharks out there on the street, subprime market descending now to the illegal immigrant street, and it is going to be punity.
Employers are going to screw them, set up indentured servitude sweatshops.
The $5,000 will never save.
I tell you, the thing is, that's right.
The illegals can go to Bank of Amigo, right?
The Bank of America has said, you might get a credit card without being a citizen.
So all they have to do is go to Bank of Amigo and pay the fine with the credit.
Okay, problem solved.
There you go.
Welcome back, Rush Lindbos, serving humanity simply by showing up every day here on the EIB network, Open Line Friday behind the Golden EIB microphone.
Have you seen big news about gasoline prices down?
I told you.
You can make book on it.
Gasoline prices are down going into the Memorial Day weekend, two-tenths of a cent per gallon.
But they're down.
I told you they were going to be coming down.
Also, I want to make this recommendation one more time to you.
Well, I've got it in front of me.
And before I forget it, it came up yesterday during all this discussion of gasoline prices.
We had a call a couple days ago from somebody who just clearly did not understand the free market and gasoline and oil prices, believe there wasn't one, essentially.
And, you know, I'm always railing against the notion or about the notion that economics education in this country is just, it's worthless.
It doesn't teach anybody anything that is useful to them about economics.
And there's a book out there, a friend of mine, I admit, Dr. Thomas Sowell is a good friend of mine.
But he's got one of the best books for non-economists to understand the basics of economics.
It's called Basic Economics, A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.
And it is simple.
It doesn't have any of this economic lingo that only advanced economists understand.
And it's what you should have learned in junior high and high school.
And beyond that, of course.
And it's out.
It's been out for a while now.
It's just, you will marvel when you read this.
Lights will go on inside your fertile little gray cells.
And you're like, why did I think of that?
It's that simple.
Why didn't I think of it?
Why didn't I understand it to happen this way?
This is going to be one of the most valuable books to your economic education that you have ever read.
And I don't care how far along in education in economics that you've gotten.
It's Basic Economics, A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Dr. Thomas Sowell.
See, the French, the French are going to pay immigrants to go home.
New French president Nicolas Sarkozy made immigration central issue of his campaign.
Now, his new Minister for Immigration and National Identity says that it's time to start paying immigrants to leave the country.
Got over 5 million immigrants in France, and the new government, conservative-led government, doesn't plan on making things any more comfortable for them.
While the new regime in Paris is determined to curb illegal immigration, it's also looking to encourage legal migrants to get the hell out, too, by paying them to go back home.
Basically, under this scheme, and this is from Der Spiegel, the German magazine, under the scheme, Paris will provide each family with a nest egg of about $8,000 for when they go back to their country of origin.
A similar scheme, which was introduced in 2005 and 2006, was taken up by around 3,000 families.
They've got dealing with 5 million immigrants now.
Can you imagine if we had a minister of national identity?
Imagine the hell that would pop up.
Anyway, you got to hear this.
Folks, as I say at the top of the program, I did not intend to start the program of immigration because I know it still revs you up.
I'm still a lot of people still fit to be tied over, but I don't want to wear everybody out on this.
Like, I don't do a global warming update every day, even though we could.
The reason I moved this discussion up to the first hour is because of this next soundbite.
This is from last night, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.
The correspondent here is Thelma Gutierrez, and she is in Lindsay, California, reporting on the new immigration bill.
CNN, a drive-by media, is out scouting and scouring the country for Republicans that disagree with me on this.
This immigration bill goes through, we are doomed.
Ed Murray listens to Rush Limbaugh every single day.
We're treating the illegals as though we are doing something wrong.
Murray is the Republican mayor of Lindsay, California.
I'm a member of the NRA.
I'm definitely very conservative.
But Murray says he and Rush part ways on one big issue.
Immigration.
Lindsay is a rural farming community three hours north of LA.
A national group voted it an all-American city.
That doesn't sit well with some people because 80% of the people here are Latino.
Some here legally, some here illegally.
Unlike most of his fellow conservatives, Mayor Murray will tell you immigrants are welcome here.
The mayor says hard work is a core conservative value he believes in, even if it takes him down a different road from his beloved party.
Well, I don't doubt this, but I never once heard the mayor, Ed Murray, say that he disagreed when they said he did.
The only thing Ed Murray said in this piece was, I'm a member of the NRA.
I'm going to have to throw that in for you.
Are they not predictable?
I'm a member of the NRA.
I'm definitely very conservative.
But Gutierrez says, yeah, Murray says he and Rush part way.
So anyway, here's the drive-by media.
CNN is out there scouting Republicans, scouting the country to find Republicans that disagree with me.
You know, not senators, not members of the House.
Nobody from the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
They're out there scouring people who disagree with me on this.
Now, why do you think that is, ladies and gentlemen?
Well, do I have to be the one to say it?
In fact, I won't say it because once, you know, this is a problem.
Once I say anything about anything, there's nothing left to be said about it, and that freezes you out.
So I will leave the question open.
If anybody wishes to take a stab at it, in addition to whatever else you've called about, feel free.
Why is CNN and the drive-bys out there trying to find Republicans that disagree with me on the subject of immigration?
The New York Times.
Big poll today, along with CBS.
Immigration bill provisions gain wide support in poll.
No, wrong headline.
Nothing but a push poll.
The poll didn't ask them about the bill itself.
I read from the story.
The nationwide telephone poll did not ask respondents about the immigration bill itself.
Yet the headline, immigration bill provisions gain wide support in poll.
And this is directly in contradiction with a Rasmussen poll out there, which says that only 24% of the American people like this bill.
By the way, Arizona Senator John Kyle said, yeah, based on what we're hearing up here, I think that Rasmussen poll is right.
So you've got a push poll on the front page of the New York Times.
Do you realize how hard this is for them?
They got a push poll that basically says the country agrees with George W. Bush.
Can you imagine the sweat and toil in the New York Times newsroom as they decided whether to publish this poll?
Anyway, it's all presented in the abstract.
I'll give you an example of how bad it is and how poorly worded the questions are right after this if we come back.
Amidst billowing clouds of fragrant aromatic premium cigar smoke, first and secondhand, I am America's real anchor man, Rush Limbaugh, America's truth detector and doctor of democracy on Open Line Friday.
And your phone calls are coming up El Quicko, the phone number 800-282-2882.
So listen to this.
New York Times, immigration bill provisions gain wide support in poll.
In the one, two, three, four, six paragraph, the nationwide poll did not ask respondents about the immigration bill itself.
Instead, it says in the second paragraph, taking a pragmatic view on a divisive issue, a large majority of Americans want to change the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status and to create a new guest worker program to meet future labor demands, the polls found.
People are pragmatic.
See, you people all of a sudden have become pragmatic.
Well, no, you're not pragmatic.
You and I are not pragmatic.
The rest of the country is.
We're a Yahoo.
We're all Yahoos.
People support an abstract.
You know how meaningless it is?
You know how they go out and ask these generic party preference polls for Congress races?
You're planning on voting Republican.
And they do it for the presidential rate.
You're planning on voting Republican or Democrat or the next presidential rate.
Throw a name in there, throw a couple of names in there, and it changes the generic ballot all the hell.
Same thing here with this abstract poll.
They have not run a poll on the bill.
What they did, it was run, and they haven't even run a poll as they claim on attitudes.
That's what they're claiming here.
They have run a poll on liberal talking points.
For example, here's a question.
Do you think the United States should set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq sometime in 2008?
The real question, a real measure of public opinion would be, should we continue the mission in Iraq or leave as soon as possible?
But when you write the question, do you think the U.S. should set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq sometime?
Ask them.
That's the Democrat Party template.
The New York Times piece mentions illegal aliens now rather than undocumented workers.
I don't know what that means.
Their style book is hard to figure out.
Poll questions on immigration and rewrites here that would measure attitudes.
In the long run, will today's immigrants make American society better or worse?
Or will they have no overall effect?
Better question would be kill the long run and just say, will today's illegal immigrants make American society better?
It's key when you leave out the word illegal.
If you're going to take a poll on what's at stake here and you leave out the word illegal, your question's meaningless.
Today's immigrants?
Everybody thinks immigrants, legal immigrants, improve the country.
Most people do.
See, this is how these sneak snakes do this.
The most loathsome and meaningless and dishonest question, I think, in the CBS New York Times poll, do you think that most recent immigrants contribute or cause problems?
Isn't about immigrants.
It's about illegal immigrants.
The real question, do you think that most recent illegal immigrants contribute or cause problems?
It's about illegals.
It's not about legal immigration.
And the New York Times has the audacity to pass this off as somehow accurately representative of the American people.
It's just a joke.
Let's see.
Let's go to the phones.
Alan in Chicago, we're going to start with you on Open Line Friday today.
Great to have you with us, sir.
Good afternoon, Rush, and have a good holiday, everybody.
Many times, a long time listener, many times caller, you know what bothers me a lot about the argument made in support of immigration is the comparison between now and the 19th century or early 20th century.
There is no comparison.
We are in a very advanced society, and the skill set of most people from the third world simply does not work well here.
And given the right...
No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
We're talking about the jobs Americans won't do, not these high-tech...
You know that.
I'm in the construction business, my friend.
I see bricklayers, drywallers, siding men, roofing men who used to make $20, $30 an hour making $9 an hour.
Those jobs are being taken up by immigrants, and they're not low-skilled jobs.
Well, why don't you pay them more?
You run the company, right?
I don't run them.
I wish.
Oh, okay.
Well, you sound like a boss.
That's right.
You have that.
aura about you.
I thought you were like even owner of the company.
At one time, I was.
The builders, a lot of people who support immigration are taking advantage of the low wage.
But my problem with the low wages, many of those people will end up as citizens on welfare because they don't have marketable skills.
And we are all going that you are exactly right there.
Not all.
The vast majority.
This is the argument.
I figured this out actually the night before last.
But all this is about is replacing our birth rate.
This is all about replacing the fact that we've aborted 1.3 million babies since 1973.
We need bodies to pay Social Security taxes because these politicians and I don't care, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Socialist, Communist, Labor Party, they are not going to reform these entitlements.
They're not going to risk getting defeated.
They're not going to reform them.
They'll talk about it, but the reform is going to be getting more people in here to pay the taxes.
And there's already our stories.
I've got one here in the stack about how these new people are going to provide more Social Security taxes than the drain they'll place on the system by virtue of what they receive.
And it's just the exact opposite because of what you just said.
And the courts have mandated that they have access once they're legal.
Even illegals, as you know, are allowed to have access to the whole social safety hammock.
It's not even a net.
It's a hammock strung out there between two palm trees, a little piña colada on the side, and all paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
So you're, no, you're exactly right.
That's precisely what this is about.
But they're telling us that the contributions, the Social Security taxes, income taxes, whatever else, that these newly stamped legals will end up paying will defray future costs in the Social Security system and the entitlements for the baby boom generation.
It's not going to work out because they're not going to earn enough money, as you say, because they're uneducated, low-skilled.
So they're going to be a net drain because they too are going to be accessing the very same social safety hammock strung up between two palm trees with a piña colada paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
It'd be a net drain.
But that'll be another mistake.
Well, we'll fix that down the road.
Well, I'm convinced that among other things, I mean, there are other things that are motivating these people, but that's a big one.
Carrie, North Carolina, Open Line Friday.
Mike, welcome to the program, sir.
Hello.
Hey, major pleasure for me today, Rush.
I travel internationally a lot, so I don't get to listen to the program as much as I.
I appreciate that, sir.
Any effort to listen to the program is appreciated.
You should try to listen more, and I know you do.
His line died?
Well, what was he going to say?
Mm-hmm.
The money, the fake social security, it goes to Washington.
The question was, with all these people out there getting fake social security cards, the employers are deducting the money.
Where does the money go?
It goes to Washington.
Some of the employers might keep it.
I don't think so.
I think employers are not going to play around with withholding.
That's too big a target.
So even the illegal social security cards, the fraudulent social security cards, the money goes to Washington.
Do you think they care?
They should, but they don't.
Any way they can get it.
Speaking of which, by the way, we, ladies and gentlemen, we have had a sponsor here going back, I guess, two or three months now, Bank of Amigo, which is going to give credit cards and other financial services to the illegals and is doing it now.
They've bought a huge flight of commercials for next week.
And whenever the sponsor comes and spends this kind of money, we give them a little bonus by playing a commercial in the middle of the program.
In other immigration news, the Senate yesterday approved a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, beating back an attempt to remove it from the grand bargain immigration bill.
It is pure amnesty.
It's the guest worker program.
If the guest worker program had been killed, the bill would have been killed.
If this vote on a guest worker thing, but it wasn't going to lose.
The Republicans get the guest worker program.
Democrats get the legalization of illegals.
Here's the deal.
Under the deal, the Republicans agree to legalize illegal aliens in exchange for Democrats allowing a new guest worker program and changes that favor future immigrants with needed skills and education.
Now, the question here is, is there a larger issue than illegal immigration?
Is there a larger issue out there than that?
Think so.
It's not about immigration.
This is the point.
This is not about immigration.
It's about our future as a nation.
For 200 years, and you've heard this, but you've not heard it from me, and so you essentially haven't heard it.
For 200 years, America was a melting pot.
And now we are at risk of what some call a mosaic.
And there's a huge difference between a mosaic and a melting pot.
You remember General Dinkins, the mayor for life in New York, called New York a gorgeous mosaic.
You have all kinds of mosaics.
You have ugly ones, lovely ones, gorgeous ones.
But we're not going to be a melting pot if this thing happens.
We're going to become a mosaic, or what the Bible called Babel, as in the Tower of Babel.
The question we have to work out is this.
Are blank Americans more American or more blank?
If we all become hyphenated Americans, are we more American or more whatever the hyphenated is?
Remember the African-American rap singer was on 60 Minutes.
What is his name?
His name is Cameron.
And this is the guy that they said something like he wouldn't inform on a fellow African American even if he were a child of molester.
He wouldn't inform because they hate the cops.
Well, now that's not very American.
This is the kind of cultural decay.
You know, this is the anti-snitch movement out there.
So if that can be the case, how will Muslim Americans react to suspected terrorists in their midst with the open borders and so forth?
How about Hispanic Americans to illegals in their neighborhoods?
And that's the simplest way that I can phrase this.
Mosaic, not melting pot.
Are blank Americans more American or more blank?
Hyphenated Americans more hyphenated or more American?
Because there's no assimilation talked about here.
Not seriously.
All right, Mary in San Dimas, California.
I'm glad you waited.
You are on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hi, I'm scared to death.
First time caller, but a long time ago.
Well, no reason to be scared.
This is going to be just like somebody you're married?
Yes, I think.
It's going to be just like your husband's there rubbing your back with a mint glove.
After 50 years, I don't think so.
Oh, amen.
Okay.
Well, my question to you, Mr. Limbaugh, is: oh, by the way, I think you're wonderful, and what you're doing is the most wonderful thing you could ever do.
Well, I'm doing what I was born to do, and I really mean that.
Thank you very much.
Well, you sound like it when you're doing it, in all honesty.
I'm talking about the they're talking about the $5,000 that these poor people will have to pay, right?
Yeah.
If they want to be a citizen, what about all the money, the $1,000 to $1,500 per person to come across the border with the coyotes?
Well, a coyote's going to have to find a new way of making money.
They certainly will, won't they?
They certainly don't want to find a way to get it.
You know what's going to happen?
I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.
The coyotes.
If this bill ever becomes law, the coyotes are going to become the border patrol.
And they're still going to charge the $1,502 grand to get past them.
That's right.
And if they don't get paid, they'll shoot them.
Well, I knew you would find a reason for all this going on.
That's for sure.
This government is not going to force these people to pay $5,000.
No, of course.
Now they're going to be victims of loan sharks and other unsavory characters out there.
The $5,000.
By the way, the $5,000, again, only applies if they ask for citizenship.
The moment they become legal, they have to pay anything.
But yeah, folks, the free market is the free market, and a coyote is not going to sit this taking down or take this sitting down.
A little verbal anorexia, not anorexia, what do you call it?
Dyslexia.
They're the coyotes.
Maybe the best thing that ever happened.
Passing this bill, but coyotes become the new border patrol about three miles south of our southern border.
Ed in Youngstown, Ohio.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Good to talk to you, Rush.
Great patriot, second only to Thomas Jefferson.
Thank you, sir.
I really appreciate it.
I put you in that category.
Thank you so much.
I'll get right to the point.
I just got back from Ireland, and our people here do not realize how good we have it.
I was in Ireland, and a liter of gasoline, 729 Euro.
Yeah.
My wife and I ordered a club sandwich each, and we had a little ice cream scoop of coslaw, which was basically cabbage, and they threw in a cup of tea, 39 Euro.
Well, now, part of that's because the Euro and the dollar, the dollar's a little weak against the Euro right now.
Yeah, because I gave them $100 and got $63.90 back.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you knew that before heading over there.
Well, I didn't think it was that bad because, you know, they make it sound like we're the worst country in the world and our gas is so high.
Ed, it's always worse than you think.
Well, listen, I live in people that live that way.
It's always worse than what they tell us.
Ed, by the way, on that gasoline price, the petrol price, the gasoline over there really is not that much more expensive.
This is the gasoline.
The taxes over there are so much higher than even ours.
That is, if you factor out the difference between the dollar and the euro today, which is also a reason why it cost you seven, whatever it was for a liter, but the taxes on petrol, they call it over there, taxes on gasoline, are sky, sky high.
And of course, that's why the left in this country is always saying, well, we're getting too big a deal here.
We need to be paying the same thing as they pay in Europe.
Wherever the left sees suffering, folks, they want us to do the same thing.
I have been corrected on something by an emailer, which means I might be wrong.
Since that is so rare, I am going to lead the next hour with it because I love doing things that we don't do much here and explaining why I was wrong about something.