BROADCASTING TODAY FROM ORLANDO

I'll be doing the show today from the studios of News-Talk 580 WDBO in Orlando!  We're here in the home of the Atlanta Braves' spring training to help Braves relief pitcher Tim Hudson with his charity golf tournament to benefit the Children's Hospital in Atlanta.  We had a great draw party last night at the J.W. Marriott hotel at Grand Lakes ... and as soon as I get off the air we hit the links!  Golly, I can't tell you how much I wish I were still practicing law!  Who knows, I might have had a calendar call today!

JUST JAW-DROPPINGLY STUPID

Those of you who are constant listeners know my feelings about government schools and teachers unions.  I firmly believe that in the long-term this country has more to fear from teacher's unions than we do from Islamic terrorists.  I fully believe that Islamic terrorists will once again strike this country, and they may well manage to kill ten thousand or more, but at this point I don't think they can kill the dream of our forefathers.  We recognize (I hope) the terrorists for the enemies that they are.  We don't recognize government education and teacher's unions for the enemies that they are.  Because we are so unaware and asleep at the switch, the education establishment can bring us down, where the terrorists probably cannot.

There is a level of ignorance in this country that the word "stunning" does not even begin to describe.  Not only are we producing high school "graduates" who cannot read and comprehend the most basic of writings, they have no understanding of American government or our true history.  These kids couldn't even begin to tell you the difference between a constitutional republic and a democracy.  They have no concept of the differences between the rule of law and the rule of men.  They cannot tell you that our founders feared a democracy, nor why a democracy should be feared.  They're ignorant as to our culture, our history and our form of government ... not to mention basic math and science.

And then there's economics.  Our typical high school grad has no clue as to how a free enterprise economy works.  He couldn't write a cohesive paragraph on the law of supply and demand or the difference between a profit and a profit margin.  This, of course, makes the high school grads just lumps of clay ready to be molded into whatever their union officials or teachers want them to be. 

I was listening to my pal Sean Hannity do an "I hate Hannity" segment on his show last Thursday. Several callers began slamming Hannity on, believe it or not, the Wal-Mart issue. They just couldn't believe that Sean wasn't joining them in their hatred of Wal-Mart.  It was clear, of course, that these were uneducated, union-oriented people.  They would come up with lines like "Well, if the unions aren't for the workers, who will be?"  Duh ... how about exercising that responsibility for yourself!  At any rate, one caller really caught my attention.  He started out with this "Republicans are for big business and rich people" nonsense.  Then somehow he got into the subject of income taxes.  Everybody knows, he said, that rich people don't pay income taxes.  Sean reminded him that the top 10% of income earners in this country pay about 70% of all personal income taxes collected by the federal government.  The caller said "That's only on paper.  They have all these write-offs so they really don't pay anything."

That conversation was four days ago now, and I can't get it out of my mind.  How, in this country, can anyone possibly be that completely and absolutely ignorant?  How can they actually believe such nonsense?  One answer --- government schools.  There is no excuse for this level of stupidity, and it must be turned around or this country just flat-out isn't going to make it.  The most immediate answer?  Get rid of teacher's unions.  Across the nation job one for teacher's unions is to fight school choice.  Parents must be denied the opportunity to chose where their children will go to school at all costs.  In Florida the teacher's unions recently managed to kill a voucher program in the courts.  Only children who went to government schools that failed to get a passing grade for two years in a row were eligible .. but the teacher's unions declared war ... and won.  One teacher-plaintiff even said that competition is not good for schools, and it's not good for humans.  This is the lesson she's teaching someone's son or daughter right now.

Wake up folks.  This country was handed to us on a sliver platter.  Now it's up to us to save it, and we're not doing all that good of a job.

NOW .. WE'LL TURN THE REST OF THE PROGRAM NOTES OVER TO MY ABLE STAFF ..............

SELLING OUT PORT SECURITY

One of the biggest holes in our national security, besides our porous borders with Mexico and Canada, are the container ports.  Through major ports on the East and West coasts come those big metal boxes.  They're then loaded onto 16-wheeler trucks and fanned out all over the country.  You name it, they carry it.  Electronics...stuffed animals...whatever.  Everything from all over the world.

There are probably millions of these containers that come in from all over the world each year.  It is next to impossible to look in each one and search it.  It's a huge security loophole. How hard would it be for an Islamic terrorist to sneak a dirty bomb into a shipping container and bring it over from somewhere in the Middle East?  Not very hard.  It's so easy, it probably won't be long before somebody tries it.

So with all of that in mind, it is an absolute mystery why the Bush administration chose to allow an Arab-owned company to take over the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which runs the ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.  The name of the company is Dubai Ports World.  It is owned by the United Arab Emirates, home of one of the 9/11 hijackers.

Now, Dubai Ports World may be a fine company, without any ties to terrorists.  But do we want to be the ones to find out?  Hardly.  What's even more outrageous is that the administration is defending the sale. (starts about halfway down)  Robert Menendez, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, hit the nail on the head: "No matter what steps the administration claims it has secretly taken, it is an unacceptable risk to turn control of our ports over to a foreign government, particularly one with a troubling history. We cannot depend on promises a foreign government has given the administration in secret to secure our ports."

Exactly.  Which is why this decision will be reversed.  Just watch.

BIN LADEN WEIGHS IN

If there was any doubt that Osama Bin Laden is alive, there isn't any now. In an audiotape posted today on an Islamic website, Osama vows to never be taken alive: "I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived."  How quaint.  Bin Laden also weighs in on the situation with Saddam Hussein.

He compares the U.S. military to Saddam, saying "The jihad is continuing with strength, for Allah be all the credit, despite all the barbarity, the repressive steps taken by the American Army and its agents, to the extent that there is no longer any mentionable difference between this criminality and the criminality of Saddam."  Oh my...the criminality of Saddam?  Osama says Saddam is a criminal...what are the Democrats going to say now?

It's the full-length tape of his statement back in January that said to expect fresh attacks on American soil.  If that happens, we can't say there wasn't warning.  And now that Bin Laden has called Saddam a criminal, the media and the left will have to find a new sympathetic figure in Iraq.

A TAX ON THE STUPID

The lottery is in the news.  The biggest jackpot in the history of the United States...$365 million...was won by a single ticket in Lincoln, Nebraska.  It was the multi-state Powerball lottery, offered in 28 states, D.C. and the Virgin Islands.

So chances are that if you played, you lost.  The money you spent on the Powerball went straight down a rat hole.  Why?  Because you were never going to win.  Your chances of hitting those numbers was about the same as getting struck by lightning.  Twice.  On Sunday.  During a snowstorm.  It ain't gonna happen.

Yet people gleefully line up, throwing their money away, hoping to get a piece of the action.  Government loves this...because the lottery is a tax.  It's a tax designed to fill the coffers of government, all without actually raising any income or sales taxes.  And just what segment of society is taxed by the lottery?

The stupid.  As long as there are morons willing to ante up for worthless lottery tickets, the states will keep raking it in.  By the way, whoever won that $365 million jackpot only won $124.1 million after taxes.  Those are some taxes!

PAPPY BOYINGTON SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Remember the flap last week about the opposition to a Pappy Boyington memorial at the University of Washington? Well, a scholarship fund has been established honoring World War II Fighter Pilot Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner and UW alumnus. Boyington was a 1934 UW aeronautics & astronautics engineering graduate. This fund provides scholarships to undergraduate students who are either a U.S Marine Corps veteran or are the child of a U.S Marine Corps veteran.

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

We've had a redneck pet carrier before, how about a cat carrier? More in the Redneck Scrap Book.

We know all of you are going to run right out and buy Why Mommy is a Democrat for your children. Pick up a copy of The Rainbow Fish while you're at it. Actually, maybe Boortz listeners would like this one better.

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