Rush Limbaugh Program - April 20, 2012, Friday, Hour #3

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April 20, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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April 20, 2012, Friday, Hour #3

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	Okay, look alive, everybody.
	It's our last hour together.
	Last hour of the week.
	Our last hour of this particular fill-in stint.
	Mary Mateline is in on Monday and rushes back on Tuesday.
	So no pressure, no pressure.
	Let's make this a great hour.
	I know the first segment's going to be, and it has very little to do with me.
	Oh, we'll cover some stuff here in a minute.
	I've just learned just this minute that 69 Democrats are joining with Republicans in the House to advance the Keystone pipeline.
	Very, very good.
	We have more stuff to do politically.
	I mean, let's face it, our liberties are under attack.
	Our Republic hangs by a thread.
	But you know what I want to do to begin this final hour?
	Doggone it?
	I want to talk about meat.
	Yes, I do.
	And who better?
	There's some business cards I just want to have scanned so that I can see them.
	This wonderful woman is Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Professional Development of the American Meat Institute.
	We have meat issues.
	Janet Riley, welcome.
	How are you?
	Well, I'm great.
	Thanks for having me on.
	It's a real, real honor.
	I want to talk some pink slime, which is a derisive and horrible term.
	We shouldn't even call it that.
	What's the technical term for pink slime?
	The technical term is lean, finely textured beef.
	L-F-T-B.
	L-F-B.
	That's what we call it for short.
	Very good.
	Lean, finely textured beef.
	Now, lean, finely textured beef sounds like something I'd like to eat.
	Pink slime sounds like something that I would run away from screaming.
	And yet they are the same thing.
	I guess it's just a matter of nomenclature.
	How did this become such a, I mean, I remember seeing, I live down in Texas, and I remember the first stories of certain fast food organizations, certain restaurant chains.
	They're injecting your meat with pink slime.
	Ah!
	That was the tone of the stories.
	Tell me what is this stuff, and why are we only learning about it now?
	Well, let me explain to you.
	It's been around for 20 years or so.
	And when you take a large animal, like a beef cattle, and you break it down into smaller pieces like steaks and roasts, you end up with trimmings.
	And trimmings look a lot like pieces of beef stew meat.
	They've got meat and fat attached to one another.
	And in the old days, it would have required a surgeon's skill to separate the meat from the fat.
	And it was just too labor-intensive to try to remove the meat.
	And so for a long time, we actually had to render it just because we couldn't get that meat out.
	But then somebody came up with a great technology.
	And what we do is we simply raise the temperature slightly and put it in what looks like a salad spinner or a centrifuge.
	And the meat liquefies and goes away.
	And what remains is the lean.
	And so because it's lean, and because it's beef, and because it's a little bit softer because it's been spun, it's called lean, finely textured beef.
	And I can assure you there is nothing slimy about it.
	Very cool.
	It is pinkish, I suppose, as it would be.
	That's about the only accurate part of that phrase.
	The adjective is the only thing.
	So, I mean, is there meat and fat in it?
	Yes, but the centrifuge process, and this was all from a guy named Elden Roth at Beef Products, Inc., correct?
	Yeah, there's actually two companies that make it, but Elden Roth is one of the leaders in it.
	And these companies are now just living a nightmare because of the pink slime stigma.
	Yeah, it's really been a nightmare.
	And while the term has been a joke to some, a joke in the social media, people think it's funny to use the term, it's not funny to the 650 people who are now wondering if they're going to have a job in another couple of months.
	They've been temporarily laid off, and we're worried that that could become permanent if we can't get the facts out about this.
	What has happened is truly a travesty.
	Because when you think about it, what you want to do with an animal, it comes down to fundamental respect for the animal.
	You want to make sure that you use every piece of meat that's wholesome and fit for consumption.
	And this is absolutely wholesome and fit for consumption.
	And when we can no longer use lean, finely textured beef because there's been this scare about it, suddenly we're losing a lot of beef.
	We have to use it for other purposes.
	We can't put it in the ground beef as we always have safely.
	And cattlemen are losing money, consumers are going to pay more, and people are losing their jobs.
	It's unbelievable.
	It's really a manufactured scare.
	And you mentioned that this stuff has been around just forever.
	And where might we run across it?
	I know that from McDonald's to Taco Bell, two companies that have a lot of my money over the years, Walmart, Kroger, I mean, this is a widespread occurrence, the use of these.
	It's commonly used in ground beef, for example, or other processed beef products at low levels like 10 to 15 percent.
	Because it does have a softer texture because it's been spun in this centrifuge.
	You're not going to have a product that's made of 100% lean, finely textured beef.
	But it's certainly included in ground beef.
	And some of the controversy stemmed from it being used in the school lunch program, but that's because USDA has regulated and inspected the product for 20 years.
	And they understand that it's a great way to make products leaner.
	And in this country, we talk all the time about the need to provide lean foods and combat obesity.
	And this has been a great tool in that effort.
	Now, suddenly, people are rejecting it.
	But unfortunately, and I respect their ability and their right to make a decision, what I'm concerned about is that they're not making decisions based upon the facts because we've been overwhelmed by misinformation from some media and in the social media, on Twitter, in the blogosphere.
	It's been really troubling.
	If this stuff was not being used 50, 60 years ago, I guess it's because the technology, the centrifuge, the spinning out of the fat part to leave the beef lean and finely textured didn't exist yet.
	That's right.
	And it would have required hand trimming.
	And you literally would have to be a surgeon to separate it because think about bacon.
	You know, that's a little bit what this would be like where you've kind of got the lean running through the fat.
	And that takes a lot of skill, a lot of nice skills to separate.
	So it just wasn't cost-effective to do it by hand.
	So this technology was really a great development.
	And it's unfortunate that now we're being asked to apologize for a great technology.
	I am a mom, and I have kids who eat in the school lunch program every day.
	And I feel very confident in the ground beef that's served.
	And I'm sure that that ground beef contains lean, finely textured beef.
	My next question, especially under these people, comes with an enormous amount of trepidation.
	What seems to be the government's take on this?
	What has the Department of Agriculture done about this?
	Well, the Department of Agriculture has been forceful in saying that this is a safe product.
	It's a lean, healthy, wholesome product.
	The Undersecretary for Food Safety, Dr. Elizabeth Hagen, joined several governors in South Dakota a couple of weeks ago, and she was very, very positive and very, very strong in saying this is an appropriate choice, and she detailed the excellent safety record that this product has.
	So USDA has clearly, they know the most about it because they have so much experience with it.
	And they have clearly been firm in saying exactly what we've been saying.
	This is a really good option.
	Well, we've talked a lot about beef, but since I have you, you're quite the renaissance woman on certain food products that I liked.
	Let me make sure that is it a current or a past business card.
	Have you also served as president of, and I just love the sound of this, the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council?
	I am proud to hold that title.
	Which has earned you a bit of a more colloquial title, the Queen of Ween.
	WEIAN.
	Queen of Ween.
	That's so cool.
	Now, what are the days like at the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council?
	Well, the days are filled with people contacting us to get information about hot dogs and especially to track down their hometown hot dog.
	It's really funny.
	When you talk to people about hot dogs, their faces light up and they feel very strongly about the hot dogs that they were raised on.
	We spend a lot of time here talking to people who've grown up in Boston, relocated to Florida, and can't find that hot dog that they were raised on and helping them get what they need.
	Absolutely.
	But the crazy month around here is July because that's National Hot Dog Month.
	And that's when hot dogs are at their peak in consumption and interest in the topic is it just grows like wildfire.
	Is July big because July 4th in the middle of baseball season?
	It's just hot dog-centric.
	Yeah, because hot dogs really are more than a food.
	They're really kind of a cultural icon.
	They're a way of life.
	They're a way of life.
	And for me.
	It's my way of life for 21 years.
	And for me, every month is hot dog.
	But listen, if we're about exploding some myths around here, let's explode some myths.
	Because, you know, when everybody's 12 years old, you'll be in the lunchroom and go, hey, dude, you know what's in a hot dog?
	And they'll go through all just unspeakable things that I won't even mention about the certain tolerable levels of just grossness that are allowed in hot dogs.
	What are those levels?
	And is that all a myth?
	It is so funny.
	I mean, people always tell me, oh, there's two things you never want to see being made, hot dogs and laws and sausages.
	Well, the fact is, I live in Washington and I'm in the hot dog business, so I've had the opportunity to see both being made.
	And I can tell you, sausage making is a much cleaner process than lawmaking.
	It's overseen by USDA, and everything that we put in a product has to be on the label.
	And so what you see are the beef trimmings that look like beef stew meat or chunks of pork that remain.
	And when you break a larger cut into smaller cuts, and then there's salt and seasonings and curing ingredients like sodium nitrite.
	But there really is not a lot of mystery about hot dog making because we have to put everything that is an ingredient on the label.
	There you go.
	Janet, in our final minute, first of all, it's wonderful to meet you.
	And what's the website and everything for the America?
	It's AMI.com, I assume?
	It's meatami.com.
	Meet A-Mi.
	Meat-A-T-A-M-I.com.
	M-E-TI.
	Very good.
	And if anyone wants more information on lean, finely textured beef, you just go to meatsafety.org.
	There's a hot link right there.
	We have videos, questions, and answers, and everything.
	I'm sorry, there's a hot link right there.
	Boom, boom, unintentional comedy.
	Oh my goodness.
	Oh, unintentional.
	It's like work at a club.
	It's like work at a club.
	There's a hot link right there.
	That's tremendous.
	And with that moment, I don't mind asking you this because I'm looking over you.
	You are just great.
	And you've apparently served in this sort of PR media spokesperson role for a lot of groups.
	One of them is the American Healthcare Association.
	I'm sure that was great.
	We could talk about that all day.
	But tell me about this one.
	Did you at some point serve as media spokesperson for something called the National Solid Wastes Management Association?
	I did indeed.
	I can only imagine what those are.
	Well, those are the people who do the very honorable job of removing the trash from your curb.
	Oh, that kind of solid waste.
	That's right.
	I'm sorry.
	I was just thinking so digestively in view of the stuff that we've talked about so far.
	Well, I tell you what, if you've got an organization, Janet is your woman.
	And right now, the American Meat Institute, meet M-E-A-T-A-M-I.com.
	In fact, there's one other website, one other hot link.
	Good times.
	No, what was the one that you gave?
	Because I've actually got one from the company that's getting brutalized here.
	What was meatsafety.org, did you say?
	That's right.
	Okay, BPI, Beef Products Inc., Elden Ross Company.
	They actually started a website called, I think you'll be in harmony with this, Pink Slime.
	Here it is.
	PinkSlimeisAMyth.com.
	PinkSlimeisAMyth.com.
	Similar logic on how very, very cool.
	It is wonderful to meet you, Janet.
	Thank you very, very much.
	Thank you so much.
	Have a wonderful Friday.
	Oh, I will now.
	Thank you very, very much.
	All right, staying.
	It's a hot link.
	Of course it's a hot lake.
	Oh, goodness gracious me.
	All right, if you'll allow me, I'm staying on food for a minute because there's a food story that involves schools and breakfasts.
	And it's kind of funny.
	You come to New York to do a show, you're going to get New York Post, New York Times, New York Stories.
	But this is one that has reached all across America because we now take for granted, we now take for granted that a bunch of kids don't even eat breakfast at home.
	We just let school take care of that.
	A breakfast at school, breakfast at school?
	You know, what?
	What kind of complete collapse of the home structure that was once the norm?
	What kind of collapse of that have we experienced to get to the point where school is the only place a kid can get breakfast?
	The specific story I'm going to talk about is that wasn't enough.
	Now we've decided, some have decided that there is stigma to making the kids go to the cafeteria.
	Oh, you must be one of those kids, one of the school breakfast kids.
	And there's stigma to that.
	So now what do we have?
	We have breakfast in the classroom.
	Why not?
	We have breakfast in the classroom.
	And so the story is, and I'll share this with you next: you know what a lot of kids are doing in this era of obesity?
	And let's have Michelle Obama way on this.
	You know what some of the kids are doing?
	They're double dipping.
	They're eating at home and they're grabbing some chow in the classroom too.
	Welcome.
	Welcome to America 2012.
	Mark Davis in for us.
	I'll have that story.
	And then everything you want to talk about, political stuff, you know, anything you want for the remainder of the Friday show, because after all, it is Open Line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	Mark Davis sitting in.
	Be right back.
	You know, I've talked to a lot of people in my talk show career, but that was some magic with Janet Riley, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for the American Meat Institute.
	The hot link moment, the stuff of legend, just in my life, perhaps just a passing moment in yours.
	But I think in all seriousness, she came, we were just talking off the air about this.
	She properly says that when it comes to making sausages or hot dogs, in the old line, the old glib line is, boy, there are two things you don't want to see made: laws and meat, laws and sausages, laws and hot dogs.
	We know a darn sight more about what's in sausages and hot dogs than we know about the content of our laws, especially these days.
	One can almost imagine Nancy Pelosi taking to a podium and saying, Well, you know, we have to eat that sausage so we can know what's in it.
	All righty.
	1-800-282-2882.
	All right, the story out of New York, New York Times story because it's a New York story.
	Michael Grinbaum has the byline.
	It is an innovative, intuitive, and increasingly common way to ensure that food reaches the mouths of hungry children from low-income families.
	Give out free breakfast in the classroom at the start of each school day.
	The results seen at urban districts across the country are striking.
	Without the stigma of a trip to the cafeteria, the number of students in Newark who eat breakfast in school has tripled.
	Absenteeism has fallen in Los Angeles, and officials in Chicago say children from low-income families are eating healthier meals more often.
	But New York City, a leader in public health reform, has balked at expanding the approach in its own schools, and City Hall is citing a surprising concern that all those classroom Cheerios and cheese sticks could lead to more obesity.
	Some children, it turns out, may be double dipping.
	The city's health department hit the pause button after a study found that the breakfast in the classroom program, now used in 381 of the city's 1,750 schools, was problematic because some children might be, quote, inadvertently taking in excess calories by eating in multiple locations.
	In other words, having a meal at home or snacking on the way to school and then eating again in school.
	But this week, the city council speaker, Christine Quinn, pushed back against those claims, joining children's advocacy groups in demanding that New York follow other cities in making in-classroom breakfast available at many more schools with children from low-income families.
	They say hunger and poor nutrition are serious problems in a city where more than a quarter of residents under 18 are below the poverty line.
	Now, we can slice and dice this story all day with regard to whether we need, you know, kids' breakfast, underprivileged kids, kids that aren't getting breakfast at home.
	It's a thoroughly valid policy debate that you can have.
	Do you send the kids to the cafeteria or do you allow some type of breakfast action in the classroom?
	But the first thing that occurs to me is the heartbreak that I feel that we not, this is just, this is just as natural as rain.
	Of course we've got to feed kids at school.
	Of course we do.
	Because the America in which every kid ate at home, virtually every kid ate at home, is gone.
	We have bequeathed this to the schools.
	We have made it easier for parenting to be negligent.
	Oh, don't worry about it, Margaret.
	They'll eat at school.
	And that just, it kills me.
	Absolutely kills me.
	1-800-282-2882.
	We are in Syracuse.
	Joe, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
	How are you?
	Hello.
	How are you?
	Doing great.
	Well, there's a restaurant around here, and you can get fine-textured beef, and I eat it every day.
	You mean get it by itself?
	Yeah, they cut it off just like a slab.
	We want to invite you up to have a nice big slab of fine-textured beef with us.
	Lean, finely textured beef burgers.
	Well, if it is lean, and if it's finely textured, and if it's beef, those three things tend to get a thumbs up from me.
	Right.
	Do you want to come have a big old slab of that with us?
	Well, the trip to Syracuse might be a little cost.
	Well, you know what?
	I live in Texas.
	I'm in the island of Manhattan right now.
	I can probably drive up to Syracuse and we could be firing up the grill by noon tomorrow.
	I'm in.
	Yeah, there's a 16-ounce steak you can get if you eat it all.
	It's free.
	No, no, no, no, that's funny.
	Now, that's funny because that invokes the big Texan restaurant in Amarillo, in which the big Texan in Amarillo, where they bring out a slab of steak that's about the size of a truck tire.
	And if you can finish it, it's free.
	Of course.
	Tremendous.
	It is truly a Friday show.
	It is Open Line Friday.
	It is the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	I'm Mark Davis filling in.
	And we're going to take a look at a couple of final political stories, a number of other things that I still haven't gotten to yet, a couple of things from the sort of the fringes of news, just stuff that needs to be addressed before we complete the week.
	And it's all contained in our final half hour.
	Back in a moment.
	Do you know how cool it is just to hear Johnny Donovan saying your name?
	I mean, just on the list of things.
	Just so sweet about this.
	This is great.
	Trip to New York ain't half bad either.
	It's just been a glorious couple of days up here for my wife and my son.
	It's just been super.
	And to hang out with Mike and Bo and Allie, just superb.
	So thanks to Rush and thanks to everybody in this wonderful organization.
	I'll have another word or two about that when we wrap up, which is about 20-some minutes from now.
	But here in the home stretch, let's see what happens.
	Call-wise and topically speaking, 1-800-282-2882.
	We are in Casey, South Carolina, with a woman named after another town in South Carolina, Florence.
	Hey, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
	How are you?
	Hi, I'm fine, thank you.
	Love your show.
	Thank you so much.
	I wanted to make a point that when I babysat for my grandchildren recently, I realized that I was told that the free lunch program is not only for the needy children.
	I tried to make breakfast for my grandchildren, and they said, no, we were going to eat at school, high school.
	And I said, oh, don't pay for lunch at school.
	No, it's free, grandmother.
	Well, they're definitely not needy.
	And I was just appalled to learn that all children that want to can get a free lunch at that school.
	I mean, a free breakfast at school.
	No, exactly.
	And listen, some of them are doing lunch.
	There are school dinner programs breaking out in some places because mom and dad are neither there.
	It's a latchkey situation.
	Who knows what's going on?
	And you've pointed out something extremely valuable that the moment you come to the table with something that seems benevolent, the moment you come to the table with something that seems kind, kindness and benevolence are lovely, but channeled through the tentacles of government, it can instantly turn into a complete cluster.
	It can instantly become a nightmare because everyone gloms onto it.
	Free stuff is like a big bowl of crack for some people.
	And so you have tons and tons of kids taking advantage of it who are not intended to be the beneficiaries of the program.
	Absolutely.
	God bless you.
	Thank you.
	Appreciate it, Florence.
	My best to you.
	1-800-282-2882.
	We are in Savannah, Georgia.
	Jim, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
	How are you?
	Mark!
	Love you, man.
	Love you right back.
	Thank you.
	Man, I tell you what, it's been about 12 years since I talked to you over at WBAP, and I want to first say congratulations on how well you've done in your career, sir.
	God bless you.
	You're very kind.
	Hey, I got a question.
	12 years ago, you know, it was Alan Keyes running against George W. Bush.
	And I voted for Alan Keyes because he was much more conservative than George W. Bush.
	Now, George W. Bush won the nomination.
	I was very proud that he was our president for the following eight years.
	Since then, Alan Keyes also got a little bit wacko.
	But my question to you is, where do you think Mitt Romney stands, left or right, of where George Bush was president?
	God, what a great question.
	Let's take it bit by bit and see where we wind up.
	It seems that Governor Romney shares President Bush's passion about, okay, passion about fighting the war, for example.
	But fighting the war in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 is very different than being the commander-in-chief during the war in 2013, 14, 15, and 16 because everybody's sick of it.
	You know, we've achieved a certain level of success, but not enough.
	And I mean, that's going to be just a mess.
	But I have a feeling that Governor Romney, a President Romney, will not be soft or swayable on the importance of keeping a hard line against terror.
	Now let's go to what's enormously important.
	Right now, it seems to so many people to match the economy.
	I also loved President Bush, and I thank God that he was president every day for those eight years.
	But let's be honest, government got bigger.
	I mean, no child left behind was expansionist government.
	These were not my favorite things.
	I think it is possible if Mitt Romney can be weaned off this embarrassment with his own wealth that leads him to entertain the notion of soaking the rich, it may be that we get a more fiscally conservative president out of Romney than we got out of George W. Possible.
	I mean, so much of your answer is it depends.
	It depends on what side of the bed Mitt Romney wakes up on January 21st of 2013.
	On the other things, let's go to social issues.
	I can't think of something where, I mean, George W. Bush was quite the social conservative.
	I happen to believe in Mitt Romney's conversion from pro-choice to pro-life.
	I have no reason to doubt it.
	In fact, when people do convert from being wrong to being right, I would rather congratulate them than kick them in the shins for being a flip-flopper.
	In fact, if your flip, I mean, flip-flop implies almost two changes of opinion.
	If you change your mind about something from something on which you're wrong to something on which you're right, the first thing I want to say is thank you.
	So I'm going to give Governor Romney some credit on that.
	That's enough about me.
	What about you?
	What kind of a vibe do you get?
	Well, honestly, I was the San Torn guy much as yourself, and I was really looking forward to a Santoan presidency.
	However, I don't think that Santoan really pushed the ability to be able to turn the economy around like Mitt Romney has been able to share.
	So, with regards to that, I kind of think I'm sort of in the same boat that you are.
	I think that Mitt Romney actually might come out a little bit more fiscally conservative than George W. Bush, but I think socially he might be coming out a little bit more on the liberal side.
	Overall, I don't think that if Mitt Romney wins, we're going to be in a bad way.
	I don't either.
	And on social, let's talk about social conservatism in a following way.
	I am less concerned about whether a president himself is pro-life or pro-choice.
	And I've got a Rudy Giuliani story coming up that I'll use to illustrate.
	The president himself, his pro-lifeness or pro-choiceness, does not matter as much to me as the devotion the president has to giving us strict constructionist justices on the Supreme Court.
	Because if we have strict constructionist justices on the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade will be overturned.
	I do not want Roe v. Wade overturned because I am pro-life.
	I want Roe v. Wade overturned because it is unconstitutional.
	And Rudy Giuliani, who absolutely is pro-choice, grasps this.
	I emceed a couple of things for Rudy in the DFW area, and it was when he was running.
	And I said, Rudy, I got to tell you, I'm prepared not to care that you're pro-choice if you will subjugate that to telling me your duty to give us strict constructionist justices on the Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade because the Constitution is only honored if that happens, and then each state would make its own abortion laws.
	He says that's exactly what I would do.
	I said, that's all I need to hear.
	Well, that's what I want to hear from any Republican candidate: we need to preserve state rights and really get the federal government out of our state.
	That's it.
	I'm just a huge 10th Amendment guy and a 9th and 10th, two of my favorites, and I'd love to hear Governor Romney talking a lot about that.
	And you know what?
	I think he will.
	Hey, thank you.
	And in fact, there's a thing, there's a thing that I've said a couple of times, and that I'll say a couple of more times, maybe before we're done, and that is that I'm prepared to believe that the Romney campaign may pleasantly surprise us, and the Romney presidency may pleasantly surprise us.
	Bo is a great question.
	Is there a comparison here with Bush 41?
	Short answer is no, because I don't think you got the voodoo economics quote out of Bush 41 as he was on the rise.
	The Bush presidency itself, I mean, he's a Northeastern-style New England-style Republican, and I don't know if that can be surgically extracted in a metaphoric sense.
	I hope that it can.
	The other thing that you got from Bush 41, his spine turned to jelly on the issue of taxes.
	Read my lips, no new taxes became a bat with which people just bashed his brains in because he went back on that promise.
	Mitt Romney is going to have to make us a lot of pledges that are going to have to resonate with our conservative core.
	He's going to have to do that.
	And then comes the really hard part, keeping those promises.
	My fingers are crossed so tight that they are already purple.
	It is the Rush Limbaugh show.
	Mark Davis filling in.
	Back in a moment.
	All right, this is just wrong.
	What reminds me of this, but there was a point I wanted to make about the 9-11 Memorial and walk like an Egyptian actually triggers my memory.
	As you come off the 9-11 Memorial, I started out today talking about this, and I'll just mention it one more time, 9-11memorial.org.
	Hit that, get your free passes, come up, visit it.
	It's a pilgrimage every American should make.
	But as you come off the property, I guess as you come on or come off, I just noticed as I was coming off, an enormous wall of visitors' guides.
	Welcome to the 9-11 Memorial.
	And here are all the visitors' guides.
	English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese.
	Don't get ahead of me.
	Conspicuous by its absence, Arabic.
	Now, I don't want to make too much or too little of this, but you know something else?
	It's a thoughtful exercise.
	It's kind of funny.
	I guess maybe the one state, I've never been to Alaska, never been to Hawaii.
	I really want to go to the Pearl Harbor Memorial, the USS Arizona.
	And I had somebody say that it's wonderful to go to the USS Pearl Harbor, to go to the USS Arizona exhibit there at Pearl Harbor.
	But then you see the Japanese tourists, and you can't restrain yourself from thinking, what's in their head?
	Obviously, decades down the line, I don't think they're there, you know, going scoreboard.
	You know, not for a minute, not for a minute.
	But I will tell you this.
	I will absolutely tell you this.
	And maybe this is something I should have brought up at the beginning of the show.
	Maybe you'll still remember it next time I guest host, presuming that ever happens.
	Muslim visitors to the 9-11 Memorial.
	Walk by, and there are some of the, and listen, you can't identify Muslims visually at all times, but you can identify some of the ladies if they have the whole hijab thing going.
	It's like, and I, and, and I, the one, the one thing I wanted to do is the one thing I did not want to do is be presumptuous.
	I don't presume anything.
	I never want to presume anything.
	I believe there are two sides to the story of Muslims in America.
	Well, there are 15 sides, but the story of Muslims in America right now is I don't ever want to understate the number of American Muslims who love this country and hate Osama bin Laden and hated 9-11 as much as I did.
	And I will always decry the people who threw a brick through the Pakistani shopkeeper's window because of 9-11.
	I hate that.
	But I also don't ever want to understate the extent to which we probably don't know how many terrorist cells there are operating just down the block.
	So when I see Muslim visitors to the 9-11, maybe one presumes from the fact that they're visiting the 9-11 Memorial, which seems to be an exercise in respect and deference, that they have exactly the same thoughts that I do.
	And I'm going to presume that they do.
	I always want to give benefit of the doubt to people until I have a reason not to give them benefit of the doubt.
	And in this regard, I mean that the Muslim visitors to the 9-11 Memorial had exactly the same feelings as the Episcopal, Catholic, and Jewish visitors to the 9-11 Memorial, that it was terrible, that terrorism must be fought at every turn.
	But you know what's different about the Muslim visitors to the 9-11 Memorial?
	They carry the burden, the stigma, of having 9-11 actually done by their faith brethren.
	Now, the law-abiding Muslim folks will tell you, and properly so, that they have hijacked our faith, that they're not really practicing what the Quran says.
	Well, you know, yeah, they kind of are.
	They kind of are.
	And maybe this is a theme for another whole show that we do not have time for right now.
	But there's a civil war in Islam right now, a civil war for the Muslim faith.
	There are those who are trying to kick it old school and, you know, engage in acts of terror the world over.
	And there are those who seek for their faith a new and peaceful face.
	And we should all prayerfully root for those who are seeking to guide Islam in a peaceful and law-abiding direction.
	I guess it's just reason number 543 why that visit to the 9-11 memorial is one that everybody, that everybody should make.
	And you know what?
	Honestly, next time you're printing up some visitor guides, do some in Arabic.
	They might be some of the most valuable visitor guides you have on that location.
	All righty, 1-800-282-2882.
	We are in Milwaukee.
	Tom, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
	How are you?
	Hello, Mark.
	Hi.
	Tom Pierce here.
	Hello.
	Just did I lose you?
	No, I'm right here.
	Okay.
	About the voter ID thing, I don't know if you know Wisconsin's, just some liberal judges in Madison just shut down our voter ID identification program that was going to take effect.
	Probably because they don't want us to, they want to make sure that it's not in effect when Governor Walker is being recalled.
	But anyway, to the point of voter ID, I just took some metal to a scrapyard.
	I always take loom hands down there.
	This time I also took some copper pipe and a motor.
	And there's a federal law that says I have to show a picture ID, and I had to fill out a form and sign a form saying that that materials belong to me.
	So here for a scrapyard, I have to have a picture ID, but to vote for our governor and presidents, we don't have to have a voter ID here in Wisconsin.
	What a magnificent, a magnificent dichotomy.
	Isn't it amazing the things we have to show ID for?
	The most random, inconsequential things you got to show ID for.
	Some of them are very consequential and very important.
	What's more important than voting?
	And yet we are told this sob story, this violin music of, oh, it is such a strain.
	It's such a burden.
	It's so unfair to make people show a photo ID.
	Who doesn't have a photo ID?
	A lot of people say, well, what if you don't drive?
	Your state's Department of Public Safety, state police, whoever, will make you a photo ID.
	They'll do it for you today because in order to live life as a plugged-in American, you have got to have a photo ID of some kind.
	So this notion that voter ID is some horrible burden is just silly.
	And James O'Keefe, our guest earlier today with Project Veritas, ProjectVeritas.com, his video journalism there is Truth Squad going.
	I just put a link for that up on Twitter so you can take a look at that.
	And in fact, last mention, because our minutes are waning as we speak here, follow me on Twitter if you like at Mark Davis, M-A-R-K-D-A-V-I-S.
	I put up a bunch of stuff from today's show and other things, and we'll continue to do so.
	Mark Davis on Twitter.
	And with that, let's take our final break, come back and dust a few things off and get out of here for the weekend, shall we?
	Mark Davis in for rush on the EIB network.
	You know, as we finish up the week here, Mark Davis in for rush, BGs, are we about to lose Robin Gibb?
	We've lost Dick Clark.
	I mean, you know, it's funny, we track a lot of politics here in the talk show world, but the pop culture wheels continue to turn.
	And, boy, that whole Dick Clark death thing, he was 82.
	I know you saw that one coming, but that's still just an amazing thing from this week that I'll take with me a long time, as well as various other events.
	And the real thing to talk about here as we wrap up with a Secret Service story and some stories about our troops is every once in a while, just a final thing on this, every once in a while, there are going to be individuals who do things.
	And let's just not let the misbehavior of a few adversely color our opinions of an entire organization, an entire fighting force, an entire Secret Service organization, something like that.
	So, hey, thanks to Mike Mamon, to Bo Snerdley, to Allie for screening calls.
	Thanks to Rush, and thanks to all of you and his radio army for tolerating me for a couple of days.
	Mary Madeline is in on Monday, and I'll be back whenever they ask.
	What a joy and an honor to do this show.
	God bless our country and our troops.
	This is the EIB Network.

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