Unofficial Summary of the Rush Limbaugh Show for Tuesday, July 9, 1996 by John Switzer This unofficial summary is copyright (c) 1996 by John Switzer (jswitzer@limbaugh.com). All Rights Reserved. These summaries are distributed on CompuServe and the Internet, and archived on CompuServe (DL9 of the ISSUES forum). The summaries for the past 60 days can be found at ftp://ftp.aimnet.com/pub/users/jswitzer. Distribution to other electronic forums and bulletin boards is highly encouraged. Spelling and other corrections gratefully received. Please read the standard disclaimer which was included with the first summary for this month. In particular, please note that this summary is not approved or sanctioned by Rush Limbaugh or the EIB network, nor do I have any connection with them other than as a daily listener. For links to major newspapers, see http://www.lainet.com/~drudge *************************************************************** July 9, 1996 BRIEF SUMMARY OF TOPICS: BATF agrees to pay 240 former and current black agents $5.9 million to settle a racial discrimination lawsuit; brother to Mike Espy is indicted on campaign fraud; Behind the Scenes at the Clinton White House: Clinton's plan to take care of Rush Limbaugh; words to "Oh God I'm a Democrat"; words to "Read It in the Headlines"; Jack Kevorkian applies for concealed weapons permit, saying he fears "right-wing nuts"; husband of Lorna Tebo denies the quotes attributed to his wife in yesterday's Wall Street Journal story about babyboomers going home to their parents for money; Barry Bonds makes what would be called an anti-Semitic remark had Marge Schott made it; a gathering of 130 top executives at Sun Valley does not include one female executive; the NY Times admits the minimum wage kills entry-level jobs and harms low-income workers; Richard Lamm announces he will run for the Presidential nomination of the Reform Party; Colin Powell says he will practice his politics privately and not attend the Republican convention nor fund-raisers; the White House says Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu will nurture their personal chemistry during their Oval Office meeting; press claims Dole has unleashed his "dark side"; Delta Airlines pilot rejects any comparison between Delta and ValuJet; caller says there is no comparison between Delta Airlines and ValuJet; caller is upset that Rush and his callers yesterday gave away so many spoilers for "Independence Day"; caller thinks "Independence Day" was a lousy movie that's not worth seeing; Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) proposes exempting small businesses from any increase in the minimum wage, an idea that Democrats in the past have supported; caller asks if Ross Perot has given Richard Lamm his blessing to run for President on the Reform Party ticket; Richard Lamm is a disaffected Democrat who dislikes what liberals have done with his party, and he takes a harder line on entitlement spending than Republicans have; caller notes that his father earned the minimum wage, so he worked two jobs to feed his family; caller disagrees with Rush whether animals such as Koko the gorilla can communicate; caller suggests Rush take up fishing if he wants to be near pelicans; caller says knowing details about a movie shouldn't spoil it, as was proven with "Apollo 13"; caller asks for Rush's opinion on the Libertarian party; Benjamin Netanyahu vows not to let Bill Clinton pressure him into a meeting with Yasser Arafat; Bill Clinton announces a program to track guns used by young people, but this program was already in place and working in 1993; Ted Kaczynski is believed to have been influenced by Joseph Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent"; Republicans want the White House to turn over the list of 200,000 names in its database so they could be made public; Corpus Christi rock concert is ended after a lead singer gets irate after being hit by a wristwatch; Boston woman is held on child rape charges after being caught having oral sex with a 13-year- old boy; experiments on rats on the Space Shuttle show that sex in space might not be an easy matter; caller supports increasing the minimum wage because it hasn't harmed the country so far; caller says increasing the minimum wage just throws the marginal employees out of work; Rush talks with a twit about "Independence Day"; caller notes that if a man had been accused of having sex with a 13-year-old girl, it would not have been treated so light-heartedly as the story of a woman having sex with a 13- year-old boy; caller rejects the twit's impressions of "Independence Day"; caller points out that increasing the minimum wage doesn't result in people's lives being improved since both unemployment and prices rise; Anthony Marceca files a defamation of character lawsuit against two people because he looked in his own FBI file and didn't like what they told the FBI about him; the Reform Party announces it will keep secret both the results of its mail-in votes and the names of those who count the votes. LIMBAUGH WATCH July 9, 1996 - It's now 1329 days after Bill Clinton's election, but Rush is still on the air with 650 radio affiliates (with more than 20 million listeners weekly world-wide), 210 TV affiliates (with a national rating of 3.7), and a newsletter with more than 500,000 subscribers. His first book was on the NY Times hardback non-fiction best- seller list for 54 consecutive weeks, with 2.6 million copies sold, but fell off the list after Simon and Schuster stopped printing it. The paperback version of "The Way Things Ought To Be" was on the NY Times paperback non-fiction best-seller list for 28 weeks. Rush's second book, "See, I Told You So," was on the NY Times hardback best-seller list for 16 weeks and has sold over 2.45 million copies; the paperback version was on the best- seller list for 11 weeks. WHITEWATER WATCH o Pending and Possible Indictments: White House lawyer and Presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey (became an unindicted co- conspirator in May, 1996). o Indictments: Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D-AR) (taking out a loan under false pretenses and defrauding the IRS); Herby Branscum, Jr. and Robert Hill (conspiracy, misapplication of bank funds, and failing to file correct statements with federal regulators and examiners); Susan McDougal (for allegedly embezzling $150,000 from conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife). o Convictions: James McDougal (fraud and conspiracy concerning Madison Guaranty S&L and Capital Management Services- May, 1996); Susan McDougal (fraud and conspiracy concerning Madison Guaranty S&L-May, 1996); Governor Jim Guy Tucker (D-AR) (felony fraud and conspiracy-May, 1996); David Hale (felony fraud-March, 1994); Robert Palmer (convicted of falsifying appraisal documents related to Madison Guaranty S&L-December, 1994); Webster Hubbell (convicted of mail fraud, tax evasion, and overbilling clients of at least $394,000-December, 1994); Charles Matthews and Eugene Fitzhugh (bribery-January 1995, defrauding the SBA-April 1995); real estate broker Christopher V. Wade (pleaded guilty to lying to a bankruptcy court and filing false loan applications to buy Whitewater property-March, 1995); Little Rock banker Neil Ainley (pleaded guilty to reduced charges of willfully delivering false documents to the government-May 1995); Arkansas college professor Stephen Smith (pleaded guilty to misusing federal funds to help pay off a loan he took out along with James McDougal and Governor Jim Guy Tucker); Larry Kuca (pleaded guilty to defrauding the SBA of a $150,000 loan together with David Hale-July 1995). NEWS o The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought by black ATF agents by paying the agents $5.9 million. The lawsuit, filed in 1990, accused the ATF of discriminating against blacks in hiring and promotions. The award, which will be paid by general taxpayer funds, amounts to approximately $20,000 for each of the 189 current and 51 former black ATF agents who took part in the lawsuit. o A federal grand jury has indicted Henry Espy, brother to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, on charges of making false statements to get a campaign loan during his unsuccessful campaign to assume his brother's vacated congressional seat in 1993. Mike Espy's attorney, Reid Weingarten, claimed this indictment showed that independent prosecutor Donald Smaltz, appointed to investigate separate charges against Mike Espy, was "roaming beyond his jurisdiction." Weingarten also said this indictment was "another example of this independent counsel's desperate and futile effort to pressure anyone, even a brother, to provide evidence against Mike Espy when there is no evidence to be gotten." One Washington lobbyist, James Lake, has already pleaded guilty to charges related to Smaltz's investigation, plus two agriculture firms have been indicted for laundering money and making illegal gifts to Mike Espy. LEST WE FORGET The following are from the Rush Limbaugh show on Tuesday, July 12, 1994: o The Clinton administration claimed that its proposal to give welfare recipients ATM-style electronic banking cards would cut down on fraud, and supporters of the system claimed the electronic "paper trail" would make it easier to catch those who defraud the system. However, federal investigators had already found that a similar system in Maryland did little to cut down on such fraud. Under the Maryland system, food stamp recipients had their food stamps credited to their electronic account, and the recipients could then use the card as they would food stamps to buy groceries. Federal officials had already arrested several small business owners who were debiting the food stamp cards and giving the customer 50 to 60 cents on the dollar, with the store owner pocketing the rest. Just two Baltimore grocery store owners were accused of defrauding the state government of $1.2 million in two years. o Self-appointed consumer activist Ralph Nader opposed the Supreme Court nomination of millionaire Judge Stephen Breyer, saying that he was a "tool of big business" and would side with "those who have against those who have not." Rush suspected Clinton chose Breyer because he needed someone who would sail through the confirmation hearings, so as to be a stark contrast to the previous hearings of people such as Lani Guinier. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that while on a radio talk show Ralph Nader tried to drum up public anger about the Clinton administration's position on tariffs and trade. Nader gave out Vice President Algore's phone number, asking people to call and gripe about the GATT agreement. Algore's phones reportedly went berserk, keeping his staff so busy answering them that they couldn't get any real work done. An enterprising employee, though, decided to forward all incoming calls back to Nader's office, so that those calls generated by Nader would be boomeranged back to him. o While in Berlin to commemorate the dismantling of the Berlin Division that was designed to oppose any East German attack at West Berlin, President Clinton told Berliners, "Here in Germany, in the United States, and throughout the entire world, we must reject those who would divide us with scalding words about race, ethnicity, or religion." o The Wall Street Journal reported that the dollar had lost 17% of its value compared to gold since Bill Clinton was inaugurated. o E.J. Dionne's column in the Washington Post praised TV for doing a great job with the court hearings on O.J. Simpson, but he asked four questions addressing why the same thing couldn't be done with the health care debate in Congress: 1) Why TV, if it could explain such integral legal issues as the Fourth Amendment, couldn't do the same with the essential problems surrounding health care? 2) Why couldn't congressional debate on the issue be televised at length, as were the Simpson hearings? 3) Why couldn't the networks bring forth experts who would not only talk about the politics of health care but about how the differing approaches would affect the average person? 4) Why couldn't the networks bring forth partisans of different views to "duke it out in the slow periods"? o Greenpeace attacked the Whirlpool Corporation for using hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in its new energy-efficient refrigerators. Whirlpool was using the HFCs instead of the cheaper and more common chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) because environmental groups such as Greenpeace complained that CFCs damaged the ozone layer. Greenpeace, though, insisted that HFCs were just as bad because while they didn't damage the ozone layer, they allegedly contribute to alleged global warming. The group wanted manufacturers to instead use highly explosive gases such as isobutane and propane as refrigerants. o The July 7th issue of Nature found that wetlands, such as marshes, swamps, and rice paddies, might promote global warming. The study, done by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and the Kellogg Biological Station at Michigan State University, discovered that when swamp marshes were injected with additional carbon dioxide, they producer elevated levels of methane, a gas said to contribute to global warming. The scientists warned that wetlands were especially worrisome because as carbon dioxide increases, it produces more plant life in the wetlands; when these plants die, these produce more carbon dioxide, helping to produce even more plant life, along with the methane that's released into the atmosphere. o EIB had another secret recording of "Behind the Scenes at the Clinton White House": <> And now, another edition of "Behind the Scenes at the Clinton White House." <> Hey, everybody, I've got a great idea! Listen, we're going to take care of that Rush Limbaugh . . . here's how we're going to do it. Remember that cat that got lost in that 747? It gave me a great idea! We're going to send Socks away to a vacation down to Bimini, in deep cover and top secret, see. Then I'll go down the EIB Network to be on the show, and then when I'm about to leave I'll say "where's my cat?" And then, well, we won't have our cat, so we'll have to have the Secret Service take the EIB Network apart, piece by piece - tape machines, the satellite phone links - everything would have to be dismantled, especially we'll have a really good look at that Golden EIB Network Microphone. We'll have to send it off to the FBI for months! <> Yes, Joycelyn? <> <> What do you mean PETA'll be upset? Those PETA people are always a pain in the *bleep* <> Join us next time for another edition of "Behind the Scenes at the Clinton White House." o From 1992: in honor of the Democratic convention, Rush played a brand-new song from "the Wolf of Indianapolis": "Oh God I'm a Democrat," sung to the tune of the John Denver tune, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." "Well now things in the party ain't so gay, We haven't looked good since JFK. It seems our polls keep gettin' away, Oh, God, I'm a Democrat." "Well, we ought to be out there shaking hands, Instead we've got these overactive glands. Carter really killed us in how he handled Iran, Oh, God, I'm a Democrat." "Now Gary did Donna, and Teddy drowned Mary, And the thoughts of Dukakis was just too scary, There's Clinton, and Harkin, and Tsongas, and Kerry, Oh, God, I'm a Democrat." "We've got nothing new, and the platform's stale, At least the Republicans have got Dan Quayle. We've just got to stop chasing tail, Oh, God, I'm a Democrat." o EIB played another tune by the President; this one titled "Read It in the Headlines": <> "Well, I really wonder how you know Because I thought I was fooling you. I worked so hard on my health care plan, But you figured out it was a scam." "It took me by surprise, I must say, When I saw the front page today, Oh, I read it in the headlines, My health care plan is in a real bind, Well, I read it in the headlines, Oh, that I'm just about to lose my behind, and your money, yeah!" <> Read it in the headlines, I'm about to lose my behind, baby! <> "I know that a man ain't supposed to lie, But for your own good, I felt it justified. Now I can't believe how much you know. Well, I blame that guy on the radio." "Well, you could have told me yourself That I can't take away your wealth. Instead, I read it in the headlines, My health care is in a real bind. Well, I read it in the headlines, Oh, that I'm just about to lose my behind, and your money, yeah!" <> Read it in the headlines, I'm about to lose my behind, baby! <> "You think it's funny, I know, I'm falling in the polls, read it in the headlines, Oh, read it in the headlines . . ." o Rush had to admit the current "Doonesbury" comic strips about him were pretty funny. The strip for that day, for example, had B.D. and Boopsie listening to Rush on the radio. In the first panel, Rush was saying, "So we enhanced the 911 tape so we could make out what O.J. was shouting. And folks it sounds like a love triangle, kind of a situation that at least makes O.J.'s anger more understandable. Even though they were divorced at the time, to O.J. it may have been like waivers - he felt he still had an option." B.D. then replied "Good analogy." Rush continued on to say, "So was Hillary involved? Too soon to say!" To which B.D. commented "the man's fair" and Boopsie sighed "thank goodness!" Rush found it interesting, though, that someone like Trudeau got away with stuff like this, calling it satire, while Rush was routinely accused of being a hate-monger for doing his own satirical bits. And, of course, Trudeau's strip implied that Rush's listeners were the biggest idiots on the face of the planet who would seriously accept any theory that linked Hillary with the Simpson murders. ******** MORNING UPDATE "Boy, talk about irony," Rush exclaims. Over the weekend a Michigan newspaper reported that Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian appealed for a concealed weapons permit. The first thought Rush had on this was that Dr. Death wanted to transform his "deathside manner" to help speed up the dying process for his "patients"; after all, why deal with all those tubes and chemicals when you can speed up the process with a bullet? However, Dr. Death doesn't want the gun for his patients but says he needs it because he's afraid of "right-wing nuts" coming after him. Thus, here's a guy who's helped kill 32 people and who's expressed a morbid fascination with the "death process" but he's afraid of nuts. Kevorkian is one of the nation's biggest nuts to being with, and who would attack someone with Dr. Death's track record? The second irony is that Kevorkian's attorney Geoffrey Fieger expects Kevorkian's application for a concealed weapon to be denied. It turns out that getting this sort of permit can be very difficult in some places of the country, certainly a lot more difficult than "helping" 32 people to die. FIRST HOUR Items o Rush starts off with a correction to the story that appeared in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about babyboomers in the 40s and 50s who still go home to their parents for money. One particular passage was about Lorna Tebo: "Even at age 40, Lorna Tebo and her mother take the equivalent of back-to-school shopping trips. Mrs. Menguy, with her quick, tiny steps, grabs clothes and shoes from racks, offering them to her daughter. It makes Lorna feel guilty sometimes, but why stop? `She's got it. I want it. I'll take it,' she says." After Rush talked about this, his chief of staff H.R. "Kit" Carson got a phone call from Lorna Tebo's husband who said that his wife and her mother were set up by the Journal reporter. The story was not what they were led to believe, and now they are so embarrassed to show their faces in their small town. However, EIB has not heard from anyone else quoted in this story, so Rush has to believe some of it was true, especially since he sent his TV show out on the streets of New York to ask if babyboomers' parents should continue supporting their children. Not only did a lot of people say yes, but one woman said that the parents should stop giving the money to their children and start giving it to their grandchildren, like her, who "really need it." o Allstar baseball player Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants defeated Mark McGwire in the "home run derby" yesterday in Philadelphia was asked if he placed any side bets on this. Bonds replied as follows: "Nah, my agent is Jewish. They call me a black Jew. I must be Jewish. I tell you one thing, I don't spend a whole lot of my money and I don't make any bets." Rush wonders if Bonds will be criticized for making anti-Semitic statements by the same people who forced Marge Schott out of baseball. Rush has yet to hear of any reporters being outraged over Bonds' remarks and he doubts he will. o Rush yesterday talked about a story in Variety that reported woman executives were not getting promoted to the senior levels in Hollywood because male executives were worried about having to work in close quarters with the women. The men are reportedly afraid of making themselves vulnerable to sexual harassment lawsuits, so they are avoiding the problem by not promoting women. The Money section in today's USA Today has a similar story about a meeting of 130 top executives and investors will be meeting this week in Sun Valley for an annual working vacation sponsored by Herbert Allen Jr. of Allen and Company, and investment firm. This year's meeting has attracted special attention because investor Warren Buffet ran into Disney CEO Michael Eisner at last year's meeting, and they began the talks that resulted in Disney's $19 billion buyout of ABC. Another interesting thing about this meeting is that it will include Tom Brokaw: "Some media critics are troubled by NBC anchor Brokaw's involvement in this meeting of the media elite. `It is always a struggle for a journalist to produce news uninfluenced,' says Ben Bagdikian, former dean of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. `The more they get involved with business, the more the public is doubtful that the news is told for their benefit. The newsroom has to be divorced from business.' "Brokaw, who also went last year, says, through a spokeswoman: `I'm going because I'm a longtime friend of Herb Allen's. I'm also going to moderate one of the panels. For me, it's a great opportunity to get caught up on what's going on in big business.'" The reason Rush mentions all this is because of the following part of the story: "The Sun Valley locals affectionately refer to Allen and his guests as `Herbie and the boys.' That's on target: No women appear to be on the list of CEOs attending. And only one minority executive, Black Entertainment Television (BET) Holdings CEO Robert Johnson, is known to have been invited." The story later describes what the wives of these executives do when their hubbies are meeting in high-level confabs: the wives go shopping. Rush thus has to wonder how the feminists think about this situation and what is happening in Hollywood. This Allen gathering is one of the biggest events for the top movers and shakers in industry, but there are no female executives anywhere in sight. Instead, the only women in sight are out shopping. o Today's USA Today and the NY Times both have amazing stories about the minimum wage. The NY Times even admits that the minimum wage hurts low-income people and kills entry-level jobs, especially jobs of the type that teenagers usually get. Rush also learned that the amendment proposed by Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) to the bill to increase the minimum wage would not only exempt small businesses from this increase but would also exempt first-time workers from the higher minimum wage for their first six months on the job. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich has attacked this amendment, saying that people don't stay in these jobs for six months. Yet the Democrats have been acting like nearly every working American spent their entire life working at the minimum wage. They have told story after story about minimum wage workers trying to support families of four, but now Reich has admitted the truth about the minimum wage worker - they don't stay at the job longer than six months. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) also attacked the Bond amendment, saying that new businesses would fire workers before six months to avoid paying them the higher minimum wage. This fact, though, is how businesses get around all of the government regulations and mandates. o Richard Lamm has announced he will run for the Presidential nomination of the Reform Party, and he's said some interesting things about this. *BREAK* Colin Powell has said he will practice his politics privately and not campaign for any Republicans this year, except for Senator John Warner (R-VA). The White House, on the other hand, is saying that Clinton's Oval Office meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu today is for the purpose of "nurturing their personal chemistry." As to Powell, the press is making it appear that he is denouncing and avoiding Dole, but in reality Powell has already said he will vote for Dole, which is an endorsement in Rush's book. The press, though, is focusing on how Powell won't be fund-raising or showing up at the convention, but this shouldn't be any surprise because these are things Powell has never wanted to do in the first place. But because Powell is refusing to campaign for Dole, the press is portraying it as a big loss for Dole. Yet the fact remains that Powell will still be voting for Dole. Also, the NY Times is claiming Dole was "soundly press whipped" for scowling on television, which the paper seems to think is something to consider when electing a President. Rush, though, still hasn't seen any evidence of Dole's "dark side" or "scowl"; he's not trying to defend Dole or be the Dole equivalent of Clinton's fawning, sycophantic press, but he just doesn't see this sinister negative side of Dole that everyone else claims exists. All Dole told Katie Couric is that he thought the press sided with the Democrats, but the press is claiming that this is "Dole's dark side" and that he was "scowling" when he said it. Rush just didn't see this, though. Phone Steve from Hemphill, TX (continued) Steve is the Delta Airlines pilot who called at the end of today's show, and since he didn't have much time, EIB has called him back. Steve emphasizes that he's not an official spokesman for Delta, which doesn't need his help anyway. However, Steve does disagree with Rush's rhetorical comment yesterday about whether Delta should be grounded. This linking of Delta with ValuJet is not accurate at all. Steve also doesn't think ValuJet was grounded because it was a non-union carrier, which many people seem to think. Rush says his point was not about whether ValuJet was a union shop but rather a comment on how the entire federal government and media immediately targeted ValuJet for destruction after its first fatal crash. No such response, though, was seen when Delta had its fatal accident over the weekend, and Rush asks Steve to hang on through the break. *BREAK* Phone Steve from Hemphill, TX (continued) Rush says his comments about ValuJet and Delta were not about unions but about the reaction that the government and American people had after the ValuJet crash. Everyone seemed determined to make sure ValuJet never flies again, but when Delta had a fatal accident, which was not its first, there was no similar reaction. Steve says Delta is no ValuJet and he resents highly any comparison between the two airlines. Rush says he's not comparing the two - for all he knows, ValuJet may need to be grounded - he's just commenting on how everyone seems determined to put ValuJet out of business after its first crash. Steve says this is where Rush has it wrong - this was not ValuJet's first crash, although it was its first fatal crash. In the months before the fatal crash, ValuJet had a percentage of accident incidents four times higher than the average in the industry. The media focused on ValuJet because it illuminated the problem with how the FAA is supposed to police the airline industry on the one hand and promote air travel on the other. ValuJet just happened to illustrate this conflict of interest perfectly - in fact, the media's coverage immediately after the ValuJet crash made it sound like the FAA was responsible, which proves Steve's point. Steve also wants to point out that one big problem in the airline industry is that new entrant airlines are not held to the same operating standards. The airline industry is not deregulated at all but is regulated with a different playing field for new and old carriers. ValuJet was allowed to operate with a number of waivers, so they didn't have to comply with many regulations that major carriers such as Delta have to follow. The FAA considers it economically burdensome to require new airlines to play by the same rules as established airlines, and it refuses to admit this has a negative impact on safety. Rush says a few weeks ago he got a call from a pilot for a major airline who said that the price of a fare has nothing to do with maintenance. Steve says this isn't totally accurate, and one example of this is that Delta has equipment that allow log analysts to electrically download information from a plane's engines at any point during the day. This allows the technicians to spot trends that indicate certain servicing is required ahead of schedule. Smaller airlines such as ValuJet simply cannot afford this equipment, so they don't offer this same level of service. Thus, the maintenance done on Delta jets is more thorough, simply because they can afford to do a better job of preventative maintenance. This is only one example of where major carriers have better procedures in place, and once those procedures and equipment are in place, they must remain in place from that point forward. Rush asks how the engine explosion could have happened then, given that the crew noticed a leak in this engine at the area where the failure is believed to have happened. Steve says he hasn't read this yet but no system is foolproof. However, catastrophic, uncontained engine failures are very rare - in his 31 years of flying planes, he has yet to have an engine quit on him, much less blow up, so this sort of thing is very rare. Rush agrees and he would encourage people to keep on flying precisely because this sort of accident is rare. People fear the failure of an engine at 35,000 feet, of course, but this sort of thing is statistically insignificant. ValuJet's crash, though, wasn't caused by a faulty engine or poor maintenance, but by what is now believed to have been improper handling and storage of some oxygen generators. Steve says if this was the cause of the crash, then it would indicate that ValuJet's employees were not properly trained. There are good new entrant airlines, of course, but Steve has gotten the impression that ValuJet seems to have had a rather shoddy operation. There were many incidents that didn't get much coverage because they weren't fatal accidents. One plane, for example, had an uncontained engine explosion and fortunately the pilots were able to deal with it and get everyone out safely before the plane became engulfed in fire. However, a flight attendant was wounded by shrapnel in that explosion. Steve thinks it's ironic how Delta had a similar engine failure, despite being the best airline around. The major point, though, is that Delta is no ValuJet especially since it has a much a better operation than ValuJet. Also, the FAA's attempt to police the industry as well as promote air travel is a clear conflict of interest that must be resolved. Supposedly, Congress is working to do this, and Steve hopes this is what happens since the airline industry has been calling this for years. Steve once had an FAA inspector sitting on his plane's jumpseat a few years ago; the inspector had just done a check of a cargo airliner and was flying back home, and he told Steve just how badly the cargo airliner performed. Steve asked why the inspector let the cargo company get away with it, given that Delta would never be allowed those flaws, and the inspector replied "well, Delta can afford to do it right." This illustrates the problem perfectly. Rush thanks Steve for calling and reiterates his only point was to comment on how the government immediately after ValuJet crash said it was a safe airline, but then 30 days later it seemed there was a vendetta against the airline to get it out of the sky. People acted as if the fact the plane charged $49 a ticket was enough to put it out of business. *BREAK* Phone Jerry from New Orleans, LA Jerry says he and several friends who listened to Rush yesterday were upset about the spoilers he gave for the movie "Independence Day." They had intended to see the movie last weekend but couldn't get in, so they were eagerly awaiting their chance next weekend, but Rush and his callers yesterday went ahead and gave away key plot points, such as how the First Lady died, the use of Area 51, and how the aliens are destroyed. Rush says every called had his or her own impression of the movie, so while Jerry might know some details, he still hasn't seen the movie, its special effects, and such for himself. For example, a bunch of hippies who are protesting the White House's treatment of the aliens are blown up themselves when Washington gets blasted; however, knowing this doesn't ruin the experience of watching these guys get blown up. Jerry asks if Rush would enjoy having his favorite mystery novels spoiled for him, but Rush says everyone had to know that humanity wins this battle. Jerry disagrees and points out that Siskel and Ebert refused to give away the ending but now Rush has told everyone what happens. Jerry doesn't mind the discussion of the movie's political overtones, but it would be nice if everyone realized not everyone has seen the movie yet. Rush asks if Jerry will still see the film. Jerry replies that he and three friends aren't sure now, thanks to how they know what will happen in it. Rush bets that this knowledge won't damper Jerry's enthusiasm for this movie at all. He also cannot believe that anyone wouldn't believe that the good guys do triumph in the end. Jerry says he and his friends didn't know about this, but Rush thinks this is an obvious conclusion to draw. He knew this would be the case long before he talked to anyone about the movie, but he apologizes for ruining this "movie-going experience" for Jerry. He hopes, though, that Jerry does see the film and that he calls back with his reaction to it. Bo Snerdley adds that someone ought to also tell Jerry "rosebud" was the sled in "Citizen Kane," but Rush notes that this is not the real story. Of course "rosebud" was the sled in the movie, but it really was William Randolph Hearst's nickname for his girlfriend's "promised land," and it peeved Hearst to no end when Orson Welles used it for a sled in his film about a Hearst-like character. Rush has gotten a lot of mail, though, about "Independence Day" from people who think he's making an idiot out of himself for commenting on the flick without seeing it first. They recommend that Rush see the movie before he starts pontificating about it. Rush, though, notes that it's no secret he doesn't go to movies (unless he gets a private screening, which usually doesn't happen unless the film needs a lot of help, such as the one starring Sally Fields as a housewife living in the Middle East). Rush did see "Forest Gump" last year, thanks to an invitation from Steve Tisch, but Rush discussed the movie a lot before seeing it, and he didn't get the grief then that he's getting now. Rush thus tells his listeners to "chill out" - he'll see this movie in about six months and then he'll talk about it some more. Rush has no doubts that "Independence Day" will still be hot by then. <> *BREAK* Phone Richard from Lakeland, FL Richard suggests Rush doesn't even waste his money buying or renting "Independence Day" because it had a perfect caricature of the Clinton administration. The press is really hyping this movie and it's been highly oversold; it's nothing but an overtech version of "Earth against the Flying Saucers." Richard believes the Clinton administration hopes that this movie will do for his campaign what the press did for this lousy movie. Rush says this is the first comment he's gotten from someone who thinks "Independence Day" was a lousy movie. Richard says he's a die-hard science fiction aficionado who collects the best movies on laserdisc, and this movie has little more than Japanese-style spaceships and lots of explosions that look just the same. Rush thanks Richard for calling. *BREAK* SECOND HOUR The Senate is debating increasing the minimum wage today, and Senator Christopher Bond (R-MO) has introduced an amendment that would exempt businesses with sales of less than $500,000 from the increase. Also, the higher minimum wage would not apply for six months to those who are getting their first job; these people would instead get the current minimum wage and then after six months would be paid the higher minimum wage. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich is upset with this idea, saying it would nullify the minimum wage increase since people don't stay in minimum wage jobs that long. This, though, contradicts the typical Democratic rant about how minimum wage workers are trapped in those jobs, working full time all their lives at a meager wage to feed their families. The Clinton administration, though, has admitted that people don't stay in minimum wage jobs that long, which means that the only reason they want a minimum wage increase is because this is what the unions want. But Clinton's embattled former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy proposed exactly what Bond has proposed back when Espy was a member of Congress in 1991. The then Rep. Espy (R-MS) got 57 Democrats to vote for his amendment back then, but today only 7 Democrats are supporting this exemption. Thus, while everyone is concerned about the influence of tobacco on Bob Dole, Rush thinks the bigger story is the influence of Big Labor unions on the Democratic party. Furthermore, Philip Lader, who is head of Clinton's Small Business Administration, last year supported Bond's amendment exempting small businesses from the increase in the minimum wage. According to the Washington Times, Lader sent a letter to Robert Reich on March 25, 1995 asking for this exemption, saying it would "make sense" and enable "firms at the margin" to maintain jobs and grow. Also, today's NY Times has a story by Robert D. Hershey, Jr. titled "Teen-Agers May Be Hurt by Rise in Minimum Wage" and it starts off as follows: "At one time, Sidewinder Pumps Inc., in Lafayette, La., would hire a dozen or more young people to work each summer at minimum-wage jobs like weeding or expanding the parking lot - tasks that were not really essential to the company but that let it give teen-agers a taste of what paid work is like. "When the federal minimum wage went up in the early 1990s, the company cut back to three or four summer workers. And this year the prospect of another increase led the company to end this quarter-century tradition. `We don't have any part-timers,' said Ernie George, a co-owner of Sidewinder. "As the Senate prepares to vote Tuesday on another round of increases, to $4.75 and then to $5.15 next year, most of the incendiary political and economic debate has dissolved into an inconclusive statistical battle over whether the move will hurt more workers than it helps. "But some economists point to employment figures to argue that however lightly a higher minimum wage may weigh on the economy at large, in the past it has fallen heavily on teen-agers, especially black teen-agers, and on adults with little education. "These are groups often also pointed to as having the greatest need to learn basic job habits, such as the importance of showing up regularly and on time. "A look at what happened after the last round of increases - to $3.80 in April 1990 and to $4.25 in April 1991 - shows how sharply the bottom end of the job market can contract, especially when this disincentive to hire workers coincides with an economic downturn. "While almost nobody argues that the higher minimum contributed significantly to the latest recession, which was ultimately determined to have lasted from July 1990 to March 1991, the higher wage does seem to have markedly worsened the job market for the youngest and least skilled. "In March 1990, just before the federal government raised the minimum to $3.80 from $3.35, 47.1% of teen-agers had jobs, but that promptly began a slide that carried it down to less than 43% a year later, when the $4.25 wage kicked in. The figure then tumbled to 39.8% by June 1992 before slowly recovering to 43.2% now." Thus, teenagers still haven't recovered from the last increase in the minimum wage, with fewer teenagers than before working. This shows how the minimum wage kills low-end employment and destroys opportunity. It's an amazing thing that the NY Times is bringing up these points now, during the debate, instead of bringing them up after the bill had been passed. The Times also writes: "Black teen-agers, often most in need of basic job skills, fared even worse. At the beginning of 1990, 28.8% of this group held jobs. But lack of hiring and dismissals drove this down to 22.5% by January 1991 and to a low of 20.4% in August 1991. Not until April, 1996 did it recover to 28%. "The unemployment rate, a less-favored gauge because it ignores those who stop looking for work, reflected similar distress. Joblessness, which for blacks aged 16 to 19 stood at 27.8% at the beginning of 1990, climbed steadily to more than 33% in the months following the first installment of the higher minimum wage and then averaged 36.2% in 1991 before peaking at 44.6% in April, 1993." Thus, unemployment of black teenagers has climbed because of the minimum wage, and more black teens are unable to work because of the increase in the minimum wage. Every economist worth his salt has been warning that the minimum wage kills employment, and finally the NY Times has bothered to report that raising the minimum wage kills jobs, especially teenage jobs. Robert Reich has now added that workers are not in minimum wage jobs for longer than six months, plus two high-level members of the Clinton administration supported the Bond amendment in the past, not to mention 57 Democrats. The Democratic party since then, though, seems to have been overtaken by the influence of unions, who want the minimum wage to go up because this means union wages will go up as well. But no good comes from raising the minimum wage because it destroys the jobs that those at the bottom of the heap need the most. Too few people bother to look this far into the matter, though, so they never realize just how harmful the minimum wage really is. The vast majority of minimum wage earners are also teenagers, who need entry-level jobs the most. "Call your Senator!" Rush urges. *BREAK* Phone Mick from St. Louis Park, MN Mick heard at the top of the hour news that Richard Lamm would be a primary candidate for President for the Reform Party, and he wonders how this can be, given that Ross Perot vowed that he would never bankroll the party if someone else was at its head. Also, does anyone expect Ross Perot just to step aside so that Lamm can take over his party? Rush says he doesn't know if Perot will continue to sit by, but this is what Perot is doing at the moment. Mick asks about Lamm's views on the issues, and Rush says Lamm is a disgruntled Democrat who has said he is running as an independent because he doesn't like what is happening with his own party. Mick asks if this means Lamm will draw more votes from Clinton, just as Perot drew more votes from Bush in 1992. Rush says this might be but Lamm is angry at liberal Democrats; he's dismayed, for example, at how Democrats "echo the lines of the teachers unions, trial lawyers, and the Medicare demagogues." Lamm also supports free trade, which Perot does not, plus he is insistent that entitlements have to be trimmed, saying that trying to reform the federal budget without tackling entitlements is like trying to clean the garage without moving the Winnebago. Lamm has also joined the National Taxpayers Union and has proposed a "national thrift plan" that would privatize part of Social Security, which will anger every senior citizen in the country. Mick says this means Lamm will draw support from conservative Democrats, and Rush says this might be, but it's clear he won't win anything this year. Lamm also wants entitlements to be cut or reduced for those with incomes above $40,000 a year, he wants Medicare spending to be restrained ten times what Clinton wants and five times what the Republicans want, and he thinks both parties are "pandering to the elderly." As to money, because of Perot's showing in 1992, Lamm will be eligible for $32 million in federal matching funds, assuming he is the Reform Party's candidate, so he won't need Perot's money. However, if Perot is the party's nominee, then he could use those funds himself, but then he wouldn't be able to spend a dime of his own money. Mick asks if Rush thinks Lamm has Perot's support or is he a true challenger to Perot? Mick notes that Lamm is on Larry King Live tonight and Perot will show up there tomorrow night, so the country will learn for sure by Thursday. Rush says he would guess that Perot has sort of given his blessing to Lamm, at least for now. Nobody knows what Perot will do in the future, though, which means this party will be a fun one to watch. Mick says this will also show who the "real volunteers are now," and Rush thanks him for his call. Rush is amazed, though, at how Lamm is going to anger seniors more than anyone else would dare, especially since he is calling for means testing for entitlements including Social Security. He also wants to reduce overall entitlement spending. If nothing else, this will take a lot of heat off of the Republicans and their reform plans, which will look good to seniors by comparison. Lamm, though, is still a Democrat - he'll be ripping both parties, of course, but that means he'll also be explaining where he thinks the Democrats have gone wrong. Republicans are used to third party guys attacking them, but the Democrats are not, especially since the 1992 elections have convinced them that a third party candidate will guarantee them victory this year. But if that candidate is Lamm, a former Democrat who is attacking Clinton and the Democratic party, then that could change. Phone Jeff from Garland, TX Jeff is the founder of the Limbaugh Supper Club in the local area, not to mention of a Limbaugh newsgroup on Fidonet. He says he's been watching the hearings on the minimum wage, and the Democrats are assuming that everyone making the minimum wage has a family of four and is working only 40 hours a week. Jeff's father, though, worked two or more jobs to feed his six kids on the minimum wage. He cared about his family enough to do this. Rush says this is great but not the real point here - the fact is that most of those earning the minimum wage are not head of households but teenagers working at part-time jobs. *BREAK* In his announcement, Richard Lamm said "the New Deal, in my mind, has become a raw deal for my children. This will be politically traumatic. The country just doesn't need a new President, it needs a whole decade of reform and renewal." Rush wonders whether other Democrats and the press will now start calling Lamm an extremist, given that they used that term for the Republican reforms, and Lamm's ideas go way beyond the Republican plans. What Lamm wants to do is a nuclear detonation compared to a Republican firecracker, so will the press start categorizing him as an "ultra-extremist" from now on? Phone Chuck from Lansdale, PA Chuck disagrees with Rush about animal intelligence, although he agrees with Rush on most other things. He saw Rush's TV show last night, which featured Koko the Gorilla, and he thinks primates do have great intelligence. Chuck is not an animal rights wacko, but he does respect animal intelligence, and Koko does demonstrate her intelligence by how she communicates. Rush explains for those who haven't seen the TV show that he played footage from Koko's 25th birthday party. Koko was given a birthday cake and she blew out the candles, after which she ate a veggie burger. Koko then used a videocamera to tape her handler and played with a baby gorilla doll. Chuck says PBS had a great show about Koko a few years ago, and it was very enlightening and interesting. He thinks if Rush saw this he'd change his mind about Koko. For example, Koko was shown pictures of cats, and she communicated to her handler that she wanted a pet cat. The show was terrific, and Chuck is certain if Rush saw it, he'd realize he's been in error; Chuck theorizes that Rush really has been watching the wrong monkey all this time - he's been watching Larry King Live and mistaking him for a gorilla. Rush applauds Chuck for trying to score points with the host, and he says that there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that he loves animals. He wishes people could see him with animals. Chuck has no doubts about this - Rush is one of the most misquoted and mischaracterized man in America by people who never watch his show and have preconceived notions. Chuck, though, thinks Rush has preconceived notions against Koko. Rush says this is not true but he does think her trainers are engaging in wishful thinking. He's talked to people who think their dogs know when they are sad and feel sympathetic to them; people have great attachments to their pets and want them to be as human as possible. Rush understands this - lately he's been fascinated by pelicans and has been trying to learn all he can about them. When he's in Florida, there's a place he goes where pelicans congregate, and he watches them, wondering how he can attract the birds closer. He even "does a Hillary" by trying to "channel" to the birds, trying to get them to come closer. He also watches the lizards there try to mate, and people thinks he's nuts for being interested in these animals. Chuck says birds, like dogs, can be trained, but primates are different. If humans didn't have particular anomalies in their throats and larynx, they couldn't talk. Rush says this is no anomaly - it's due to God, not to mention that humans can talk because they have a human brain. Chuck agrees, but that doesn't mean Koko cannot communicate as well; gorillas just have to use sign language since they don't have any voice equipment. Rush, though, says this is no accident - God did not intend for gorillas to speak. Chuck says this is true, but the point remains that just because animals can't speak doesn't mean they cannot communicate. Rush says it's obvious animals can communicate - a red fox can quite clearly let you know that you'd best leave it alone. Rush's only argument is not with the animals but with the animal rights wackos who think animals have rights. These people are lost souls engaging in intellectual depravity. Rush won't doubt that Koko might communicate she wants a kitty, but he has his doubts that she knew yesterday was her birthday, as one news story reported, unless it was because once a year she gets a cake and a veggie burger. Rush has no quarrel with animals of any kind, but he does reject the notion that animals have rights. He does disagree with those who think they can tell what animals are thinking and feeling, and who thus insist humans have to be subordinated to them. Chuck agrees with that, and Rush thanks him for calling. *BREAK* During the break, the EIB staff suggested that Rush get hold of Koko the gorilla, show her a picture of a pelican, get her to ask for a pelican, and then when she has one, Rush can take it from her. One flaw with this plan is that Rush doesn't know exactly where Koko is; he thinks she's in California but isn't sure. The staff bet she's staying at the Bellaire Hotel, and Rush says he wouldn't be surprised at this. Phone Dan from Carmel Church, VA Dan suggests that if Rush wants to capture a pelican, he should start fishing. If they see Rush is cleaning fish on a pier, they'll surround Rush in a flash in an attempt to get some of the fish. Rush asks if the pelicans would be afraid, and Dan says not if Rush takes his time and doesn't show them any aggression. Rush bets he could really establish a close bond with a pelican by giving it some of his fish, and Dan agrees this would work. Rush isn't sure, though, he wants to become the administrator of a "pelican welfare state," and he asks if Dan fishes. Dan says he lives aboard a boat, and he knows enough not to feed the pelicans; however, he sees how they cluster around people who are fishing on the pier. If you start fishing, the pelican will think "hey, there's some fish down there" and come to get it. Rush notes that this fish approach would probably attract a lot of birds, but while he's not a fisherman, he might try it to get close to a pelican. Dan says he's gotten pretty close to a pelican but the only time he ever touched one is when he unhooked it from a spike he had landed on. Rush, however, points out that pelicans don't think in words - they don't see someone fishing and say "hey, there's some guy fishing down there." They act upon instinct, sight, and sound; however, many people like to humanize their pets. Rush thanks Dan for calling. Phone Andy from St. Louis, MO Andy has a short list of goals for life, and one of them is to smoke a cigar with Rush some day. He likes H. Upmann cigars but would love to get a Partagas Number 10 if he could find them. Rush says cigars are backordered by 55 million in the United States, so it's almost impossible to find the big ones. Andy says his local tobacconist used to have a wide range of cigars to choose from, but it's gotten so hard to find the good ones that this guy now offers only Mexican knockoff cigars, simply because that's all he can get. Rush says the stocks will be replenished eventually as new fields are opened in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. Dan hopes so and he's calling to talk about the whiner, Jerry from New Orleans, who accused Rush of spoiling "Independence Day" for him. Dan first thought this guy must have been Dick Gephardt, and he has to wonder if Jerry also complained about "Apollo 13." Everyone knew long before this movie opened what would happen but that didn't detract from the enjoyment of it at all. It was still a great and thrilling story, so Jerry should just lay off. Rush thinks Dan has a good point, and Dan says a good movie is one that can get you so absorbed that you forget about what's going to happen. Rush says he also thinks that the discussion he had of "Independence Day" yesterday would stimulate people's interest in the movie, given that nearly everyone had a different take on it. Rush asks where Dan smokes his cigars, and he replies that he basically smokes on his back porch; there are only a couple of other places in town that let smokers in. However, he thinks cigar smokers will triumph eventually - his 90-pound wife smokes cigars and he's confident that as more and more women start smoking, places will have to start accepting them. Rush likes the way Dan thinks and thanks him for calling. *BREAK* Phone Bruce from Ft. Plain, NY Bruce watched the Libertarian convention on CSPAN over the weekend and wonders what Rush thinks about this party. Rush says the Libertarians are right about many things and their day is coming in one way or another. People are starting to become more and more open to calling themselves Libertarian although the strict Libertarians are too laissez-faire for Rush. For example, the income tax will never be abolished, although the party's Presidential candidate makes a lot of sense talking about this. Many of the Libertarian party's principles just aren't realistic, but the thinking behind them makes a lot of sense, and the party will clearly a home to more and more disaffected people. Bruce agrees, except when it comes to their drug policy - it seems Libertarians want to legalize all drugs. Rush says Libertarians believe that government has no right to outlaw "victimless crimes" such as drug use, so they believe people should be able to take whatever drugs they want. Rush disagrees with this, though, because he believes this is an instant recipe for societal decay. *BREAK* THIRD HOUR Items o Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Clinton at the White House today, and the administration's statement on this said the meeting will be devoted to "nurturing their mutual chemistry." Clinton is hoping to convince Netanyahu to meet with Yasser Arafat, but Netanyahu is on record as saying he's making a polite diplomatic call but will not allow himself to be coerced by Clinton into backing down from his principles. o President Clinton yesterday announced a program to track the illegal sales of guns to young people by using a national database to identify who sold guns that are confiscated from young people in the nation's big cities. This is yet another attempt by the President to portray himself as a big "tough on crime" President while not angering his key constituency groups. White House spokesman Mike McCurry denied, though, that any election year politics were involved with this program. Bob Dole staffers, though, pointed out that this program actually dates back to 1993 - a story in the November 6, 1993 San Francisco Examiner quoted ATF chief John Magaw as saying "ATF's highest, immediate priority is tracing the source of guns used by juveniles during crimes." Upon hearing this, McCurry accused Republicans of trying to turn this into an "election year political ploy" and told reporters that they could write what they want since the White House "doesn't tell you what to write." Rush finds that an interesting quote, given that the White House has tried to tell the major networks what they should broadcast and whom they should interview. It's also interesting, though, that Clinton thinks it's big news to bring back a program that he put in place in the first year of his Presidency. If it worked so well before, why isn't it already working now? And if it's not working, why bring it back? o The Associated press is reporting the following tidbit of news: "Federal authorities believe Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski may have been influenced by Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel `The Secret Agent,' the Washington Post reported Tuesday. In the novel, a brilliant but mad professor abandons academia in disgust for the isolation of a tiny room, where, clad in ragged, soiled clothes, he builds a bomb used to destroy an observatory referred to as `that idol of science.' "Kaczynski is a former mathematics professor said to be an avid reader of Conrad's books. The Post said FBI agents had noted parallels between Conrad's theme of science as a false icon and the Unabomber's targeting of scientists and technological experts and his condemnation of technology. Kaczynski left his job as a professor to lead the life of a hermit in a Montana cabin and wrote letters depicting technology as evil." Thus, this is the second reference to the Unabomber being influenced by books. The first book, of course, was Algore's "Earth in the Balance." Obviously talk radio was not an influence on this man. o Republicans are saying the White House should turn over the names of the 200,000 people that are in the White House's secret database so that Republicans can make these names public. In a letter to the White House Counsel's office, Rep. David McIntosh (R-IN) said "we believe very few Americans know you keep a file on them in the White House." The Clinton administration said this list was only to keep track of those people who receive holiday cards from the President and those invited to events at the White House. This, though, is the biggest database of names known to have been kept by any White House, and Rush would love to see it made public. o A concert in Corpus Christi, Texas Saturday by the alternative rockers named "The Butthole Surfers" ended abruptly when the lead singer got mad after an audience member threw a wristwatch at him, hitting him in the hand. The singer, Gibby Haines, told the 5,000 fans in the audience to "shut up and go home," and he challenged the rest of the audience to punish anyone else who threw something. "I want to see somebody hurt!" Haines shouted from the stage. He also called Corpus Christi a city of "white trash" and said he didn't care if the fans bought their albums or not. "We've got your money already!" he exclaimed, which Rush notes is what all rock bands could honesty say. The concert, by the way, also featured the group "Reverend Horton Heat and the Toadies." o Yesterday's Boston Herald reported that Kathleen Kennedy was accused of having sex with her best friend's 13-year-old son; she was held on $1,500 bail after being accused of eight counts of child rape and four counts of indecent assault on a child. Kennedy was turned in by a neighbor on June 9th who saw her performing oral sex on the son. The story gets weirder, though, because the kid, who is 5 feet tall and 85 pounds, was left in Kennedy's custody by his parents so he could finish seventh grade at his school in Maynard, MA while his parents moved to a new home. The boy's mother, who has known Kennedy for 25 years and considers her a close friend, said she was outraged by this and that her son was embarrassed. The mother also said "it's every young boy's dream to have sex with a woman like that, but he knows it's wrong and I asked him." Another neighbor also said Kennedy knows what she did was wrong but that "it wasn't like she was raping him." o It doesn't look good for humans having sex in space, given that experiments with race on the Space Shuttle showed that the rats had difficulty having sex and in giving birth. The rats who did get pregnant could not give birth until they returned to Earth, which means that sex in space might not be part of a human routine. *BREAK* Returning to the story of rats in space, Rush notes that it was a bunch of psychiatrists who ended up watching the videos taken of the rats having sex in space. They probably will release it as a Time-Life video, titling it "The Trials of Life: The Pornography Video." Phone Mike from Palisades, CO Mike says Rush seems to be getting worked up over the minimum wage issue, and as someone who is pretty conservative and has listened to Rush for several years, he thinks Rush is missing the point about the minimum wage. Rush interrupts to say that "the pattern is right out of the handbook," thereby accusing Mike of being a staged and coached caller from the Democratic party. Mike says he has listened to Rush for years, and Rush sarcastically replies "yeah, I know!" Mike continues on to say that Rush has been getting excited about the minimum wage over the past few months, and one point he'd like to make is that he is about the same age as Rush and can remember working in a cabinet shop for about $1.25 an hour. The minimum wage was raised a bit back then and he heard the same issues and rhetoric back then about it as he is hearing now. However, the country assimilated the minimum wage increase just fine and there's no reason it can't do so again. Mike didn't lose his job back then and there are more people employed now as a percentage of the population than ever before. Rush says this is not true for minimum wage jobs, especially among blacks - the numbers he read before from the NY Times story prove it. Black teenagers still haven't recovered from the minimum wage increase in the early 90s. Mike, though, says the papers are full of minimum wage job ads, and they aren't going away. At the very least, therefore, the minimum wage should keep pace with the cost of living because otherwise the minimum wage goes too long without being adjusted. Rush says the only reason the minimum wage increase is happening now is because it's an election year - economic concerns have nothing to do with it. Mike agrees - the liberals are trying to buy votes with the minimum wage. Rush says it also doesn't make any sense for someone who allegedly has compassion and a big heart to tell someone they should be earning at least $5.15 an hour. This is a fake and phony compassion that is the product of election year maneuvering, and it's no different than how the homeless activists bought shopping carts and trash cans for the homeless. Liberals think they should be praised for this sort of "compassion," but their behavior is nothing if not insulting to those they supposedly want to help. Increasing the minimum wage similarly will only hurt those that liberals care to claim the most about. "Been there, done that," Rush says before jumping to the next caller. Phone Bob from Casper, WY Bob is a small businessowner who has another perspective on the minimum wage. He's been through several increases in the minimum wage and he's seen what happens. He believes that you cannot overpay an employee because your competitors will then be able to do a better job than you for less and you'll go out of business. Similarly you cannot underpay employees because they'll just go to work for someone else, probably your competitor. The lesson is thus that you have to pay an employee what he is work, and that cost is solely determined by the market. The minimum wage thus skews the market, making it tougher for businesses to stay in business. However, another thing the minimum wage does is prevent businesses from hiring marginal employees. If the minimum wage goes up, the business will try to hire someone who is worth that amount of money. If a business didn't do this, they wouldn't remain in business long and when a business goes out of business, it can't employ anyone anymore. Bob thus wonders what will happen to the marginal people who are kicked out of work by an increasing minimum wage. They end up going into an underclass and getting on welfare, becoming dependent on government. This person will thus continue to favor those who support the Democrats, so increasing the minimum wage is obviously just a scam by the Democrats to get votes. Rush agrees - it's nothing but a political move. Bob adds that will also increase the Democratic party base, and Rush says this is what has been going on for the 40 years of the New Deal and the 3 years of the "Raw Deal." He thanks Bob for calling. *BREAK* Phone Joe from Katie, TX Joe wants to talk about "Independence Day," which he found totally predictable. The earlier caller was exactly right about how it was obvious that Jeff Goldblum's technogeek character was going to save the world. The bureaucrats were played as "kneejerk, nuke em all" types, while the military just did what it was told, which was the only thing that was accurate. Joe knows you have to suspend disbelief for science fiction movies, but he found it hard to believe that the doctors at Area 51 could not save the President's wife, despite the fact that these doctors had to be the tops in their field, with access to the best technology. They claimed that she simply had too much internal bleeding and Joe finds that hard to believe, given all the technology and equipment they must have had available to them. Rush agrees it's hard to believe these guys couldn't save the First Lady but could defeat the aliens with a cropduster. Joe says another thing was that the Air Force couldn't get beyond the alien ships' shields, but the bureaucrats still wanted to nuke the aliens. Joe was crawling down in his seat at this point because he is a die-hard science fiction fan and couldn't believe how bad it was. He's also a "technogeek" himself who knows something about digital imaging, and he couldn't believe how most of the effects were repeated "over and over and over again." Also, there wasn't even any ray-tracing for the models to duplicate the lighting and shadows that should have been seen. Joe knows he applies standards that are higher than most people, but this sort of thing bothers him. Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies, in contrast, have great graphics and it's hard to tell they are computer generated, but "Independence Day" had graphics done so badly that it was painful to watch. Joe would have been ready to get up and leave except that he had to stay with his friends. Rush says the guys in New Orleans probably are upset to learn that this movie isn't that great anyway, given the poor graphics and unbelievable medical portrayals. Joe suggests these guys save their money for something more worthwhile. Rush asks Joe what he thinks is a good science fiction flick, and Joe replies, very straight-faced, by saying "any of Schwarzenegger's movies," such as the two Terminator films. Joe also says the original "War of the Worlds" was better than "Independence Day," which stole almost everything from the original movie, except of course the virus in this film is a computer virus and not a biologic one. The film also had a scene from "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and Joe shows off his extraordinary knowledge of science fiction cinema by repeating the classic alien phrase from that film: "Varada Niktu" [sic]. Also, "Independence Day" ends with all the nations of the world uniting at the end. Rush asks if the United Nations was shown in this movie, and Joe inexplicably replies that it was "extemporaneous" because the Americans used Morse code to communicate with the other nations. Rush wonders if the anti-UN crowd will be pleased with this movie. Joe also would like to point out that if the minimum wage is increased, it means people will be paid more for doing the same thing. Since the value of these people's work hasn't gone up accordingly, the value of the dollar has thus decreased, which is not good news for world trade. Rush asks if the movie touched on this, and Joe admits "Independence Day" didn't, except that the guys who did the special effects for the movie didn't earn their salaries by not giving a commensurate value. Rush says this is typical of what comes out of Hollywood and he thanks Joe for his review. Phone Louis from Atlanta, GA Louis says the story about a woman being arrested for having sex with a 13-year-old boy was interesting because this woman was only "embarrassed" about it, not to mention how the boy's mother didn't think it was a big deal. The entire matter was treated in a light-hearted manner, but had this been a man having oral sex with a 13-year-old girl, the story would not have been done in such a humorous tone at all. Rush agrees - had it been turned around like this, bail would have been set at $100,000 and not the $1,500 Kathleen Kennedy had to pay, plus the guy's life would have been destroyed by the front-page coverage. Louis also cannot believe anyone would say it was every young girl's fantasy to have sex with an older man, nor that a mother would have told her son "gee, you really shouldn't have done that." Louis thus thinks this is another example of blatant anti-male bias in the press, and Rush says this bias goes beyond the press and is part of the culture. People laugh when a 13-year-old boy gets raped by an older woman, but the reactions would have been different had the teenager been a girl. Rush thanks Louis for calling. *BREAK* Phone Dan from Santa Paula, CA Dan says Joe was a "really overbearing technogeek." Dan saw the movie twice and really liked it. He is amazed how out of context so many people are taking this movie. Rush says he finds it fascinating how everybody who calls about this biggest grossing movie in American history have a different take on it. It's intriguing that few people say the same thing. Dan says he first saw the movie in a small theater with crummy sound, and then he went to a big theater with a big screen and DTS-Dolby, which allowed him to see and hear things he didn't see in the first time. Nobody clapped or cheered when the White House blew up, but they laughed at the jokes, and the last scene where everyone is smoking cigars was fantastic. Rush says he will have to see this film just to see the famous cigar-smoking scene, and Dan adds that he grows Christmas trees. Rush notes the most beautiful thing done with these trees is to cut them down, and Dan agrees, plus he gets to replant them every year. Rush thanks Dan for calling. Phone Ernie from Wamego, KS Ernie says the caller who supported increasing the minimum wage glossed over the fact that raising the minimum wage didn't do anything to improve people's lives. Everyone working for the minimum wage in the 60s was in misery and that's exactly what is happening today. Raising the minimum wage again won't do any good - all it will do is raise unemployment for a while, and then as it goes back down, the prices will go up, prompting the liberals to demand another increase in the minimum wage. Rush says the only good a minimum wage increase ever does is help politicians demonstrate their "compassion" and get more votes. Ernie says government officials just don't have the courage to do what needs to be done, and Rush agrees this is the case in many cases. He thanks Ernie for calling. Phone Bill from Chicago, IL Bill says Anthony Marceca has filed a defamation of character lawsuit in Texas against two people who gave information about him to the FBI. Rush says he read this story - Marceca did this after he looked in his own FBI file and saw what others had said about him. He didn't like it, so he's suing those who gave this information to the FBI. This is one reason people think Marceca took the Fifth Amendment when he was called back to testify for a third time. He's claiming he "just happened" to drop his own file on the floor and saw what was in it, but that's pretty unbelievable, given that you have to file a Freedom of Information Act to see your own file. The bottom line, though, is that Marceca was able to look up dirt on anyone he wanted, yet he's suing people because he didn't like what was in his own file. This is the essence of hypocrisy. Bill agrees and adds that these two people whom Marceca is suing are two more victims of the Clinton administration - because of Filegate they will now have to use their own money to defend themselves against things they told in the FBI in secrecy. Because Marceca violated the privacy rights of others, though, they will now have to defend themselves in court. Rush says this is a good point - these are two more little people harmed by the Clinton administration. Bill says another scandalous aspect of this story is that he got this information only by downloading it from the Houston Chronicle via the World Wide Web - it was not reported by the NY Times, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or any of the other major newspapers. Bill found out about this article only because someone from Texas sent him an email on CompuServe. Had it not been for CompuServe, he'd never have learned about this information at all. Bill also wants to know what program Rush uses to download his email from CompuServe and whether he's still using its autoreply feature. Rush says he's using Claris Emailer, but he doesn't always use the autoreply anymore because some people get offended by a form letter. Bill says he tried to send Rush this information via email but it was returned with a "mailbox full" message. Rush says this is because he was away from his computer for four days over the weekend. Normally his computer could automatically download his mail, but Rush had to change his mailer software temporarily because for a while someone was repeatedly sending him the same mail message that crashed Claris Emailer for some reason. Rush doesn't know why this happened but he would always get a memory error when this piece of mail showed up. Rush doesn't think it was a deliberate mailbomb attempt, given that this mail seemed to be copies of the guy's letters to the editor, but something with his mailer seems to have disagreed with Emailer. Rush thus had to resort to using Navigator for a while, but it crashes a lot, and if this happens, his mailbox won't be automatically emptied. Since his mailbox's capacity of only 100 emails fills up in an hour and a half, this would explain why Bill got a mailbox full message. This volume of mail also explains why Rush cannot respond to everything, although he does read it. He thanks Bill for calling. *BREAK* Rush only has enough time to report that the Reform Party has announced it will keep the results of its mail-in vote secret, leading some to wonder whether Ross Perot has plans for these votes. The party will also keep secret the names of those who will count these votes, so Rush wonders if this is because the Reform Party has hired Craig Livingstone and Anthony Marceca for his job.