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June 17, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:32
June 17, 2010, Thursday, Hour #3
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It's open line Friday on Thursday, Rush Limbaugh, serving humanity.
And as usual, utilizing talent on loan from God.
The reason we're doing Open Line Friday on Thursday is I have another wedding I have to go to.
Not mine this time.
It's a good friend of mine's daughter is getting married somewhere in the hidden climbs of the great Northwest.
And it's happening with part of the rehearsal dinner and so forth.
Doug or Bansky being here tomorrow.
And then folks, Monday get back, and it's a it's a full schedule five days as far as the eye can see.
800 28282, if you want to be with us on the program here, our telephone number and the email address is uh L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Now I have been promising all week, well, since Tuesday, to share with you a column Art Laffer wrote, published June 7th in the Wall Street Journal.
And I'm going to start this hour with the column.
Because this is really if if there's if there's one thing that you want to bone up on as the future is prepared to unfold before your very eyes, it would be the information here in Art Laffer's piece.
The headline is tax hikes and the coming 2011 economic collapse.
Today's corporate profits reflect an income shift into 2010.
These profits will tumble next year, preceded most likely by the stock market.
People can change the volume, the location, and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates.
People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.
Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, hold the bulk of their wealth in non-taxed form of unrealized capital gains.
Let me repeat this.
Who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, hold the bulk of their wealth in non-taxed forms of unrealized capital gains.
The composition of wealth also responds to incentives.
And it's also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people who do not work, fewer people will work.
Incentives do matter.
Let me intercede here and simply use myself as an example.
I pulled a plug and left New York in 1997.
I moved out of there because I discovered that there's no state income tax in Florida.
Have you ever wondered why so many athletes claim Florida as their residents?
When they may live and work all over the country, plying their trade.
It's because there's no income tax here.
There's no income tax in Florida.
And people say, well, yeah, but they really nail you on the property tax.
Well, they do.
The property tax is higher here, but I've run the numbers.
The no income tax combined with the property tax here doesn't even get close to what I was paying income tax state and city and unincorporated business tax in New York.
I've left New York in 1997.
I have been audited every year since I left.
I have to prove where I am 14 different ways for every day of each year.
And I still get audited, and they still accuse me of lying to them about where I am on every day.
I have not done this program in New York in a year and a half.
Mr. Laffer is exactly right.
And folks, in this case, you know, I'll should I shall I should I tell them what my tax rate per day is when I work in New York?
I don't think I should do that.
But just it's not the money, it's the principle of the thing.
Well, it's ridiculously high, but that's not the it's it's the principle.
If if New York wants to drive people out of the state, I will lead the way.
And that's the way I've looked at it since 1997.
The point is here that Laffer is exactly right.
And his point about Gates and Buffett is look at them.
The bulk of their wealth is in the non-taxed form of unrealized capital gains.
They're not paying taxes on their wealth, contrary to what they and everybody else want you to believe.
And now Gates and Buffett met in some diner in Omaha recently and came up with a plan.
They want every billionaire to give away half of his or her wealth.
Either now or at their death, give it away to charity.
Now, I don't care what anybody does with their money.
Gates and Buffett can do whatever they want with their money, but I draw the line at them telling everybody else what they should do with theirs.
If they have a lot of guilt over having amassed multiple billions of dollars, fine and do with it whatever they want.
But don't take that guilt and try to spread it to everybody else.
Because once you start saying that billionaires ought to give away half of their wealth, well, then maybe everybody ought to give away half of their wealth up to what is the magic number, $250,000 a year.
You know, you take you live your life the way you want to, but leave me out of it.
It goes for money, it goes for what I use to brush my teeth, what kind of car I drive, to what kind of television set I buy, to whether or not I'm going to smoke a cigar or not, whether you're around or not.
So the point is here that laugh incentives work.
I'm going to tell you something else.
With these massive tax increases coming starting in 2011, that's why told you yesterday, airline industry reported a two and a half billion dollar profit this year, because they want to pay low tax rates on that profit this year, not next year.
I don't care how they got the profit.
I don't care if they got it charging for carry-ons or for bags or what have you.
And there are a lot of corporations and industries that are going to go ahead and report profit this year in order to pay tax on it this year, rather than defer it.
People who have the ability are going to move as much of their income to 2010 as they can.
Robert Iger, psych said Michael Eisner, 1992 in December, or maybe it was 93, the month before the Clinton retroactive tax increases went into effect that took the rate to 39%.
Eisner sold $192 million worth of Disney stock, and he had voted for Clinton, of course, to escape the new tax increase.
And there are going to be a lot of people, people who have the ability to shift income to take it early or whatever, they're going to do that.
To avoid these new taxes.
The point is the tax increases are coming are not going to raise the revenue everybody thinks.
People are going to be running away from as fast as they can.
All these profits are going to be reported, and there's going to be an economic downturn as a result next year.
People can change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies.
According to a 2004 Treasury report, high-income taxpayers accelerated the receipt of wages and year-in bonuses from 1993 to 1992 over $15 billion worth in order to avoid the effects of the anticipated increase in the top rate from 31 to 39.6% under Bill Clinton.
So Eisner's 192 million was part of that 15 billion.
At the end of 1993, taxpayers shifted wages and bonuses yet again to avoid the increase in Medicare taxes that went into effect beginning 1994.
And to give you a real-life example of how this works.
Our old friend the Breck girl, John Edwards, who was always running around talking about the poor and poverty and has two Americas.
John Edwards organized his business under subchapter S rules.
So he went sub-S.
Now the Medicare tax at the time was I think 1.9% of everything.
It's not like the Social Security tax, which has a ceiling.
I think the Medicare tax is now 3% of everything.
If you go sub-S, which is legal, don't misunderstand.
If you organize under subchapter S, you can pay, let's say your entire generated income in a year is uh pick a number, 500 grand.
You can pay yourself a salary of 75,000 or 100,000 and pay Medicare and Social Security only on that and income tax and then take the other in bonus, which is exempt from the Medicare tax.
It's salaries and wages.
And Edwards did that.
And everybody says, Well, how can you do that?
Well, I'm just, I'm just taking advantage of the law.
But I thought you wanted to paw people to get paid.
I thought you'll be Medicare patients to get treatment.
I do, but I don't want to pay thought.
Incentives matter.
Just remember what happened to automobile sales when the cash for Clunkers program ended.
Or how about new housing sales when the $8,000 tax credit ended?
It isn't rocket surgery, as the Ivy League professor said.
On or about January 1st, 2011, federal, state, and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply.
President Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning the highest federal personal rate will go to 39.6% from 35%.
The highest federal dividend rate pops up to $39.6% from 15%.
More than doubles.
The capital gains tax rate goes to 20% from 15%.
Oh, it's another thing.
You're going to have a lot of people.
Normally, you know, high high wealth people will take appreciated stock and they will donate that to charity rather than sell it and pay the capital gains tax.
But a lot of people have been going ahead and selling stock and buying others and the proper capital gains at 15%.
So it's going to go to 20%.
So what's going to happen?
You're going to have a lot of people who will sell stock.
They will liquidate their positions in which they're holding a gain prior to the end of the year in order to pay a lower capital gains rate than what Obama's new rate is starting January 1.
All of this accelerated economic activity is going to make the end of the year look like boom time.
But at the same time, when January rolls around and first quarter and the second quarter hit, then of course there's no economic activity because these tax increases are in full force.
And people are going to be less interested in even reporting income.
They're going to be looking for ways to shelter it or hide it so as to avoid paying these higher rates, the people that can, and the people that can are the people that hire you.
So you had the capital gains rate's going to go 20% from 15%.
The estate tax right now is zero.
It's going to go back up to 55%.
So a lot of people are probably going to die this year.
They're going to move their death forward so that their families don't have to pay any estate tax, as opposed to next year when they would die, have to pay 55%.
Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provisions of the Bush tax cuts.
Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from offshore investments.
Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013.
The alternative minimum tax will be digging deeper and deeper into middle income taxpayers.
And there's always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans.
State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010.
The bottom line is that tax rate increases next year are everywhere.
Now, if people know that tax rates are going to be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year?
They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible.
As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it would otherwise be, and next year, 2011 income will be lower than it otherwise should be.
Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates, and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 to 2010.
In my view, writes Laffer, this shift of income and demands a major reason the economy in 2010 has appeared to be as strong as it is, which ain't very strong, by the way.
When we pass the tax boundary of January 1, 2011, my best guess is the train goes off the tracks, we get our worst nightmare of a severe Double dip recession.
1981.
Ronaldus Magnus.
Bipartisan support began the first phase in a series of tax cuts passed under the Economic Recovery Tax Act, the ERTA, it was called, whereby the bulk of the tax cuts didn't take effect until January 1 of 83.
Reagan's delayed tax cuts were the mirror image of Obama's delayed tax increases.
For 1981 and 82, people deferred so much economic activity that real GDP was basically flat.
It contributed to that recession because people didn't want to pay those high tax rates.
They wanted to wait around till 83 to report any income.
The unemployment rate rose to well over 10%.
But at the tax boundary of January 1, 1983, the economy took off like a rocket average real growth reaching 7.5% in 83%, 5.5% 1984.
It has always amazed me how tax cuts don't work until they take effect.
Mr. Obama's experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse.
The economy will collapse in 2011.
Consider corporate profits as a share of GDP.
Today, corporate profits as a share of GDP are way too high given the state of our economy.
These high profits reflect the shift in income to this year from next.
These profits are going to tumble in 2011, preceded most likely by the stock market in 2010, without any repayment or prepayment penalties.
Folks, this next is key.
Listen to me.
Look at me.
In 2010, without any prepayment penalties, people can cash in their IRAs, their KEO deferred income accounts, and 401k deferred income accounts without prepayment penalties.
After paying their taxes, these deferred income accounts can be rolled into Roth IRAs that provide after-tax income to their owners in the future.
Given what's going to happen to tax rates, this conversion seems like a no-brain.
Anybody who has a decent accountant is going to be advised to do this.
It's further economic activity taken out of next year and put into this year.
The result is going to be a cash in tax receipts once the surge is passed.
If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Okay, everybody paying attention to the oil spill this week, and everybody should be.org.
25 bucks to join and find out what else this administration is doing under the cover of the media focusing on a crisis.
Anne in Houston.
Great to have you on the program.
Welcome.
A privilege to talk to you.
You I'm sure remember the old Charles Atlas ad.
Well, I think that Obama is skinny at the beach, and you are kicking sand in his face.
But Rush, in his in Obama's speech, uh he said that the United States represents two percent of the world's population and has twenty percent of the world's resources.
And I think that drives him crazy.
I think he wants to redistribute not only in the United States, but to the world.
What's your comment?
I think you're exactly right.
I think you have nailed precisely who Obama is.
That stat, the left has been using that stat for as long as I've been able to hear.
I can still hear, even though I'm deaf.
They use it in describing image.
Yes, yes.
We are but X percent of the world's population, and we use twenty-five percent of the world's energy.
How guilty of us.
We're stealing from people around the world.
I think Obama really believes this.
We are two percent of the world's population, and we are using twenty-five percent of the world's resources, and of course we're doing it in a criminal way, in his view.
We're robbing all the people around the world.
We don't do one damn thing for anybody that's good.
He doesn't see us that way.
I I think I think Anne, you are right on the money, and that aspect of his speech.
I'm glad you picked up on that.
I'm I'm glad you noticed it.
Uh because that's what animates him.
That's how he's been raised, it's how he's been educated.
That is what informs him.
That is why he thinks this country is unjust, unfair, and immoral.
And that's why it's time to cut us down to size.
You have nailed it on.
Oh, is that right?
All right.
Well, that's good.
Grab uh next call as we go back to the phones of John in Southern Illinois, which is not far from southeastern Missouri where I was born and grew up.
John, welcome to the program.
Nice to have you here.
I called you in March of 2005 to thank you for ten years of wedded bliss with my wife.
Um you are the catalyst that put us together.
And uh I hope you we're going on sixteen years now, and uh I hope you and Catherine and and Wellesley and Abby the same kind of happiness that we have.
Um I do have one question for you.
Wait a minute now.
You you need to explain something here.
There are a lot of people listening who love me but are still gonna be scratching their heads over how it could have been me uh behind a happy marriage uh for you.
Okay, I came home from the Marine Corps and I was a cocky uh devil dog hanging around around Carbondale.
And uh my wife did not care for my cockiness.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
What is a talking devil dog?
Cocky.
Cocky.
Cocky, you know.
Oh cocky.
Oh, yeah, women hate that.
Well, yes.
No, that's not true.
They they they they say they hate it, but they actually don't.
Exactly.
And she uh she found out that I was a ditto head because uh somehow or another the word feminazi came out of my marine lips.
That was the other F word that I used.
And um she bought me a bottle of snapple, and we have been uh going out ever since, uh in August of ninety when she found out that you were a Rush Limbaugh listener because of the use of the word feminazi and snapple and so forth, then she didn't care that you were cocky.
No, she loved it.
Yeah.
Because I was cocky and right.
Now, um I have a question for you.
Yeah.
Out of sixteen years of marriage, we have not yet had a select comfort bed, and we're thinking about getting one when we move over into Missouri.
Um I have a question.
Which model do you have and what is your number?
Well what model do you think I have?
The best one they have.
That's exactly right.
Um top of the line is what I'd recommend.
But it's not necessary.
Depends.
I mean, I got a full boat king.
Uh but the sleep number.
Now that's that's a personal choice.
It depends on uh the desired firmness uh that you desire and uh your wife desires.
Um it changes all the time.
Uh like I I have a sleep number.
Sometimes it's 75, sometimes I jack it up to ninety.
You know, and I I sometimes fifty.
Just it depends what you want.
That's the great thing about it.
You can change it multiple times a night or once a week or whatever you want.
Well, that's that's awesome.
Well, uh my dad was a World War veteran two veteran, he turned me on to you.
We lost to Memorial Day ninety nine, and he would be very proud that I was talking to someone he'd considered a great orator and a great American statesman.
And you, sir, it is an honor to speak to you.
And um and I uh it this is the third time I've been fortunate enough to get to, and and we love you.
And we're praying for you and Catherine to have the same kind of happiness that we have.
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate that.
That's very kind, and I God bless your dad.
You know, my dad was World War II veteran as well.
I'm reading your book right now, the book about you right now by uh Mr. Shevitt.
Mr. Chaffetz.
Yeah, that you know it's it's interesting.
Um I talked to Zev via email the other day, and he's been blackballed from uh a lot of conservative uh television shows and networks.
He has been uh uh not invited.
Uh it he's gotten some invitations on liberal programs, but no conservative programs are taking him to interview him.
Which I said, Zeb, that should not surprise you.
It shouldn't I I uh d it shouldn't surprise you at all.
Um and he's uh he's plugging away at it out there.
It is uh, you know, I participated with him in writing them, but it's it's it's a miniature biography.
It's actually a lot more than a than a biography called Rush Limbaugh and Army of One.
And I actually read it.
I read it on my iPad.
I downloaded it, I think where did I get it?
The iBook store or uh Kendall, I'm not sure which.
And I don't like reading things about me.
And I never have.
Just like I can't I don't watch myself on television.
I don't listen to myself on the radio.
I don't need to.
I hear it firsthand as I perform it, and I'm there.
But I don't read things about me, and I I picked this up or downloaded it, and I you know, I was gonna read a sentence on this page and jump a couple pages and find a sentence there, and I I found myself about an hour I was turning every page.
And there was even though I knew everything that was in it, well, I he has some opinions in it about me that I didn't know.
That's why Army of One is the title.
But I had forgotten a lot of the things that he found out by trolling around Cape Girardo uh and talking to people, and I'm reading these things.
Liz, I've forgotten all of them.
I mean, junior high school stuff.
So it's uh I I found myself turning the pages and reading, and I thought it was interesting.
Which it's I know it's it's amazing how fast it oh, yeah, all those e-books they downloaded, blinkety split.
Exactly.
You got the Barnes and Noble e-reader, uh Kindle, iBooks on the iPad, which is coming to the iPhone.
Um yeah, it's it's it's fascinating.
Uh carrying around all the hardcover soft covers.
But anyway, I I um I I I was I was frankly kind of surprised that I enjoyed it and I was reading it.
I kind of lost myself turning the pages, and I looked at it.
It'd been an hour.
Uh and and there's there's I didn't run across anything.
Gee, I wish he hadn't said that.
I mean, maybe there were a couple things, but my maturity is such that that's a pointless attitude to have since I'm reading it.
Just sit there and say, gee, I wish it weren't there is kind of stupid.
But it is what it is.
Rush Linbaugh and Army of One.
Zev Chaffetz, the author, blackballed.
What?
Uh No, well, no snurden to ask me if uh if I was reading things I'd forgotten that surprised me.
Um, I say m a lot of it's oh yeah, I actually did do that.
It's like I was proud of it.
It's the things that for oh yeah.
I've forgotten that.
I did it well what the volume of output, fifteen hours a week.
You gotta twenty-five years, gotta throw Sacramento in there.
It's impossible to remember everything you've done or said.
And uh so it all came, you know, flying back at me, and I said, Damn, that was good.
That was clever.
That was hilarious.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was surprised.
I was yeah, I was surprised how fast I was turning the pages.
You know why I was surprised?
Because I knew what was coming.
I mean, it's about me.
I wasn't reading something about somebody I didn't know anything about.
Yet I was turning the pages pretty fast.
Um so I'm glad he's reading it.
Who's next?
Jeremy.
Jeremy in uh Reading, Pennsylvania.
Welcome to EIV network, sir.
Great to have you here.
Yes, Megadivos Rush.
Hey, I just wanted to make a quick connection.
I always hear everybody talk about uh George Orwell nineteen eighty four, but another book he wrote that nobody makes the connection to is uh Animal Farm.
Yes.
Where the uh animals take over the farm and write their own rules, but slowly the pigs start changing the rules.
And the connection is the Democrats are like the pigs who slowly start changing the rules.
Case in point with the whole Kennedy uh Senator Kennedy election, how when he got appointed, they changed the rules from the governor can appoint somebody to a special election, but then when he died, they didn't want a special election.
They wanted the governor to be able to appoint somebody.
And that even goes into the whole oil spill and everything, because during Katrina it took Bush like nine days or so to react, and that wasn't quick enough, but it's taken them some two months to really react, but it's okay for them.
Yeah.
Excellent point.
Excellent, excellent point.
You got Snerdley, you found some great uh great callers out there for open line Friday on Thursdays.
Jeremy, thanks, uh thanks very much.
Say, folks, the uh the carbonite plotits keep coming.
This was posted on Carbonite's Facebook page by somebody obviously very intelligent because he said he heard about carbonite from me.
He wrote my computer crash the other day, no beating my head on the desk, no worries, I have carbonite.
It was all backed up.
Thank you, Cardin Carbonite.
That is a relief.
I don't know.
Have you ever lost a lot of data thought you've lost a lot of data on your computer?
And you know how I mean that's Panic City.
And then when you find out you've got it back or you didn't lose it, you know how relieved you are.
That's what carbonite is.
I mean, you back it up, it backs up off-site every time you're online.
It happens in the background, you don't even see it, and you probably forget about it until that day comes and it will when your computer peters out.
And you have to go get a replacement computer replacement hard drive, you reformat it and back it up, and you haven't lost anything.
Carbonite turns fear into joy.
Automatically backs up your PC or Mac off-site, whenever you're connected, unlimited, just uh fifty-five dollars a year at Carbonite.com.
If you use the offer code RUSH, 15-day free trial, genuine 15-day free trial, Carbonite.com, two months free if you decide to buy.
So it won't cost you anywhere near fifty-five dollars.
And fifty-five dollars is nothing compared to the value of what you're gonna lose if you can't get it back.
Carbonite, back it up, get it back.
Carbonite.com, offer code rush.
So a congressman, I don't know who it was.
It's being asked, uh Hayward is being asked this BP CEO, Tony Hayward being asked by a Congressman if he thought that he was shaken down by the White House yesterday for the twenty billion.
He answered twice and never said no.
He did not say no.
Yeah, he didn't come out and say, Yeah, we really shook us down in there, but he didn't die he didn't deny it.
Here's Mike in the Woodlands, Texas.
Great to have you on the uh EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hi, Rush.
It's a great honor to speak with you.
I can officially cross one item off of my bucket list.
I appreciate the time to get on to speak with you.
Thank you much, sir.
I appreciate that.
Want to touch base, she had a caller last hour about uh why gas prices are not going up, or or question why they weren't.
And the reason is a simple supply and demand uh principle.
The well that was being drilled was not a productive well, so the the oil that was coming up from the test spot was not being included and did not go on to the commodity exchange board.
Well, that's all well and good.
Uh so this the supply of this well never existed, uh as far as speculators are concerned.
That's correct.
But Obama slapped on this moratorium.
We're not producing a single barrel of oil in any of our thirty-three offshore rigs.
Well, you believe anything he says anyway.
Oh, you think we are producing?
Oh, uh they didn't shut anything down yet.
They haven't shut anything down yet.
That doesn't mean they won't, but uh, you know, we're still producing if they don't produce it here, like you say, they'll just go to Venezuela or I know, they'll go somewhere else.
They haven't shut down those they have they haven't shut down those 33 rigs yet.
No.
Are you in the all business?
No, but I have a buddy of mine that is, so uh, you know, I'm just going on what I'm being told from there.
Um, you know, I'm not actually out on the well or the the rig, so I don't know for sure, but that's what my pain is.
They're still they're still pumping.
Hmm.
I wonder if the wacko left knows this.
Appreciate that.
Uh Mike, yeah, thank you.
Thanks very much.
You know, at the end of the day, uh, folks, all these show trials and these moratoriums are about Obama, the Democrats embargoing our own oil until we invent some alternative energy sources.
That's really what this is about.
It's it's a lot like holding your breath until you get what you want, which the only people that do that are adolescents.
And of course, that never works, right?
Because your will to live will make you breathe.
You that the horrible way to commit suicide is hold your breath.
You can't do it.
Have you ever tried?
Try it now.
No, don't.
But you can't do it.
But that's uh that's what these children in the White House is.
We're gonna hold our breath till we get what you want.
That's in effect what's uh happening.
Lavonia, Michigan.
Always love people that call from Lavonia, Michigan.
We've never had a dud yet.
This is Leonard.
Don't be the first.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Thank you, Russ, for taking my call.
My question is everybody seems to be wanting to beat up on BP, but like you said, in the third or fourth day, the Netherlands uh offered help.
And all Obama did was said no.
This could have been put off at least, maybe not prevented, but put off with the skimmers from the Netherlands, the booms out of Maine, the skimmers out of Texas.
This could have been at least maybe half.
They could have been picking up oil.
Let's just say a million gallons a day are coming out of this this as well.
And if the skimmers are picking up half of it, it's going to take twice as long to get to land.
Well, uh, the fact of the matter is that uh Obama wants the crisis.
He doesn't want to cleaned up fast, is obvious by his lack of attention to it.
The second thing about the Netherlands and the foreign assistance it was offered is called the Jones Act.
The Jones Act uh requires that everybody working on an American emergency of this kind, I'm paraphrasing the act, has to be a member of a union.
And uh in it's been routine that presidents have waived the Jones Act in its entirety in previous occasions to accept such help.
Obama refused.
Uh as you know a loyalty expression to uh members of uh his support group, the union, so a lot of factors here, but it's not I know it sounds outrageous, but it's not outrageous to say that uh they like the disaster.
It it it furthers their agenda.
There's no there's no question about it.
Ginger in Slidell, Louisiana.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Russ.
Did a megadiddos.
Thank you.
Um I I live about thirty miles off the coast, and we're inundated by the news every day.
Uh we heard this morning that uh General Bad Allen has shut down um all of the skimmers for inspection.
We were just concerned and curious at what your thought was on that.
General Thad Allen, Admiral, and as has shut down the Well, I'm sorry, you're right.
He shut down the skimmers for inspection.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
He has shut down all the of the skimmers for inspection.
They are no longer skimming the oil out in the Gulf.
Uh well, the first I've heard of this, and uh I uh generally I try not to render an opinion on things I don't know about, even though I'm usually right about it.
Uh even I'm usually right about most everything, even though I don't know about it.
But we we we I I've not seen anything about this.
I I don't there's not one news story that's the radio station all day, and they have been slamming him.
Well uh Billy Nungetha, the pl president of Platman's Parish, who we're all altogether not pleased with because he was very friendly.
Yeah, yeah, I can understand why.
Well, look at we'll try to find that out because that would be news.
Thanks so much for the call.
Back after this.
We haven't been able to find anything in the news on the skimmers being pulled out of service for inspection.
Now we're not denying that it's happening.
We just can't find anything on it until such time as that.
It would be uh pointless to comment on it.
Remember Doug Arbansky'll be in here tomorrow, and I'll be back on Monday to bring me back to normal.
Another wedding uh in a great Northwest friend of mine's daughter is uh is getting married.
She's gonna walk down the aisle barefooted, very casual.
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