RUSH: Here’s Linda in El Centro, California. Twenty-five percent unemployment there. Hi, Linda.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is like the best Mother’s Day gift I could ever have.
RUSH: No, no, no, you gotta get flowers.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: Is somebody gonna give you flowers for Mother’s Day?
CALLER: Oh, probably.
RUSH: You expect them, right?
CALLER: Of course! (giggles)
RUSH: Well, see, I that’s what I said yesterday. You can’t go wrong, folks. Everybody thinks that flowers are a last resort.
CALLER: Oh, no!
RUSH: If you can’t think of anything else.
CALLER: No, there’s —
RUSH: They work, right? They work every time they’re tried.
CALLER: (giggles) Amen. Hey, I am a college professor here in the Imperial Valley.
RUSH: Mmm-hmm?
CALLER: And my comment — I have a zillion, but the one that I was talking to Bo about — was that we have that highest unemployment rate in the nation, as you said.
RUSH: Yeah, I saw that yesterday. It’s 25%, rivaling unemployment rates in the Great Depression.
CALLER: Yes. Well, my comment is that I think a lot of the people here who are on unemployment are riding the system as far as they can take it. They take classes in how to stay on the system as long as possible.
RUSH: Where do you go to find a class on how to stay on the system as long as possible?
CALLER: (laughs) Oh, some of them actually are born in Mexico, from what I gather. The people there learn how they can come here and how they can actually get our benefits.
RUSH: I’ve heard this.
CALLER: Uh-huh, and they do it.
RUSH: I’ve heard this story, a lot of people I know from Southern California, they said this illegal immigration issue has roiled them for years.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: And they have told me that there are instructions for, if you need medical emergency care, how to call an ambulance, which ambulance to call, which hospital emergency room to go to, if you don’t have any health coverage and so forth.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: So you’re saying that there are classes out there to tell people how to scam the system —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — if they’re unemployed?
CALLER: Yes, there are. And there are actually college classes that the college I teach at teaches to help people who are unemployed, how they can get back into the workforce here in the Imperial Valley, and I have a friend who teaches several of these courses, and in the class, the students aren’t paying attention. These are adults. They’re not paying attention. They’re cleaning their fingernails. They’re on the phone. They’re text messaging. They’re doing all this stuff only because they get paid to take this class.
RUSH: Is this a community college?
CALLER: Yes, it is.
RUSH: Okay, and they’ve actually got a course —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — on how to get a job and get off of unemployment?
CALLER: Yes, they do.
RUSH: And they have to go to this course in order qualify for some unemployment benefits?
CALLER: Probably for an extension, I would say.
RUSH: So the question that arises is: Which came first, unemployment benefits or the course that you gotta go to to maintain your benefits?
CALLER: This is true.
RUSH: This is hilarious. I mean, it’s —
CALLER: It’s funny, but it’s sad.
RUSH: I know. It’s maddening.
CALLER: Maddening.
RUSH: Even if it is a community college, you’ve got a college with a course set up specifically for people to go park their butts and do nothing.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Where they then, by doing nothing, qualify for unemployment extension benefits?
CALLER: Right, and they also get paid to take the class.
RUSH: What?
CALLER: They get paid to take the class.
RUSH: By who?
CALLER: By the state, I am sure. You know, this state just loves people who are out of work.
RUSH: My God, the scam’s coming from government —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — which doesn’t surprise me.
CALLER: No, it does.
RUSH: The scam’s coming from government, so somebody’s had to devise the program, put up a college class in community colleges —
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: — and then we’re going to tell unemployed, ‘You gotta go there — and by going there, that will qualify you for more unemployment.’ So they can get critics off their backs. ‘Well, we’re educating our unemployed. We’re educating them.’ (laughing) They’re doing their nails, reading People magazine, Us Weekly, OK magazine, whatever it is. Putting it in the ti-i-ime! (laughing)