Toledo Mayor kicks out Marines

February 12, 2008

The Glenn Beck Program

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner website has been down for a while now - but if you would like to visit it and learn more about the mayor, click here...

GLENN: Let me go to Fred LeFebvre of WSPD in Toledo, Ohio, the home of quite possibly my favorite mayor.

LeFEBVRE: Oh, really?

GLENN: Yeah. Fred, I don't even remember this guy's name. What's his name again?

LeFEBVRE: Carlton S. Finkbeiner. It is pretty cartoonish as are most of his behaviors recently and before we go forward, I'd like to help you with your positive potty problem.

GLENN: Are you a positive potty role model?

LeFEBVRE: I am. And I understand that you suffer from MPPP. So you may want to pick up the book "Everybody Poops."

GLENN: Really?

LeFEBVRE: Have one of your guys pick that up. Have Stu find that for you, "Everybody Poops." Just read that.

GLENN: Fred, is it really a book?

LeFEBVRE: It really is a book.

GLENN: It really is a book. How old are your kids, Fred?

LeFEBVRE: My kids are out of college already.

GLENN: Yeah, you son of a...

LeFEBVRE: But we read it to my children.

GLENN: Really? "Everybody Poops"?

LeFEBVRE: "Everybody Poops."

GLENN: You know, I've forgotten because I've got college kids and I have a 2-year-old and everybody does poop, we have learned that.

LeFEBVRE: That's right.

GLENN: But I have forgotten the joys of the phone calls in the middle of the day, you know, when you're in meetings with high powered people and you have to say, excuse me just a minute, "Who went poopy on the potty! Good for you!"

LeFEBVRE: Well, it never got that bad for me, thankfully.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah, it has for me but I'm not a positive potty role model, but anyway --

LeFEBVRE: Well, you will be. There's always hope. I just hope that our mayor here, Carlton S. Finkbeiner becomes a positive role model. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

GLENN: He kicked the Marines out of Toledo.

LeFEBVRE: Yeah, he did, Friday night, company A, 24th battalion, first marine. We're coming into town to do what they refer to as urban patrol exercises. You may have seen it around when they come into a city, urban practice, they practice in abandoned buildings, they work on the streets, not live fire or anything.

GLENN: Carlton must know there's no city better for abandoned buildings than Toledo, Ohio.

LeFEBVRE: Well, the interesting thing is after scoping them out and then referring to them the following day in his press conference, he said we would be glad to have them back, we have plenty of other abandoned buildings for them to use. He just, he wasn't aware of it apparently. There was a miscommunication according to him. He didn't know they were going to be in the central business district on a Friday evening.

GLENN: Isn't that where the mayor is keeping most of the abandoned buildings there in the central business --

LeFEBVRE: That's where ours are, where we're setting up there that are abandoned. The problem is these guys came all the way from Grand Rapids, Michigan, a four-hour drive. They were just about set up --

GLENN: Hang on just a second. Wait just a second. A four-hour drive, please tell me they weren't driving Humvees. They were driving something that was a little more environmentally friendly.

LeFEBVRE: Military vehicles.

GLENN: Prius.

LeFEBVRE: Very environmentally friendly.

GLENN: Of course they are.

LeFEBVRE: Probably about 3 miles per gallon but that's okay.

GLENN: All right.

LeFEBVRE: They were almost set up, they were ready to go. When the mayor sent word that because he hadn't been informed of it, even though everybody else knew, TV stations, radio stations, newspaper, all were aware of it and had made it known to the public, he wanted them out by 6:00.

GLENN: By 6:00. What time did they arrive?

LeFEBVRE: Probably around 3:00, something like that. They were just getting set up. The other vehicles were on the way. Captain Davis had come in early. He was the one in charge. He was setting up.

GLENN: Right.

LeFEBVRE: At that point Captain Davis changed out of his camo into a regular uniform as a sign of respect to the mayor.

GLENN: Yes.

LeFEBVRE: Went down to 1 Government Center to have a face-to-face with him and see if they could work something out. The mayor was too busy.

GLENN: Really?

LeFEBVRE: Yeah.

GLENN: Was he, like, walking his dog or something?

LeFEBVRE: He had somebody else walk the dog.

GLENN: He really does bring a dog to work, doesn't he?

LeFEBVRE: Yes, he does.

GLENN: I like a mayor that feels comfortable enough to have his dog in city hall.

LeFEBVRE: Well, I think he needs it. It's one of those therapy dogs. If he doesn't have the dog with him, he will kick somebody else.

GLENN: Really?

LeFEBVRE: Yeah.

GLENN: Oh, does he have a John McCain temper?

LeFEBVRE: Yeah, I would say so. There are stories of the mayor actually slapping his PI, his public information officer.

GLENN: Really?

LeFEBVRE: Throwing coffee cups and chairs, all kinds of wonderful things like that.

GLENN: That's too bad. I hope this interview is pissing him off.

LeFEBVRE: It doesn't matter. He won't come to me.

GLENN: So Fred, so he's kicked the Marines out and he did it because he didn't know. But I've heard also that he said that it was frightening people to have Marines there.

LeFEBVRE: Well, the number one -- first of all, like all Democrats there are a number of reasons, and the reasons change as the days go by.

GLENN: Sure.

LeFEBVRE: The first reason was that he hadn't been told there was a miscommunication.

GLENN: Got it.

LeFEBVRE: The second reason was --

GLENN: Wait, wait. So the first thing that you do is kick the Marines out? There was a miscommunication. So kick the Marines out of your town.

LeFEBVRE: Yeah, there are --

GLENN: The last thing you do is trust the Marines, yeah. All right.

LeFEBVRE: The second reason that he didn't want them there is because it would frighten people.

GLENN: Oh, that's a good one.

LeFEBVRE: The thousands of people that are downtown according to the mayor, the 10,000 to 14,000 people who are leaving work, the schoolchildren who are getting on the bus and, of course, all the people who went to the RV show this year.

GLENN: Yeah. Were they still in town just meandering around?

LeFEBVRE: No, no, he sent them home.

GLENN: No, I mean the RV show people.

LeFEBVRE: No, they're gone.

GLENN: I didn't know if they were still meandering around. They were like, the RV show was so great, I still want to just hang around all these empty buildings.

LeFEBVRE: No, they got frightened by the mayor and left.

GLENN: Does the mayor know that people are running from the center of town as it is? They don't -- maybe the Marines being present might actually make people feel more comfortable?

LeFEBVRE: Actually it probably would to know that there was a presence downtown, since the police force is kind of small right now.

GLENN: And I've talked to some of the police in Toledo, Ohio, and none of them really want to go on the record.

LeFEBVRE: Well, that's the thing. The mayor is also known for retribution. Yeah, he's not a friendly guy. So the Marines got kicked out, they had to be out by 6:00. They went back to Grand Rapids.

GLENN: Yeah.

LeFEBVRE: And from there the things have just blown up. Not only are the local people, citizens and ex-armed force people upset, it has spread on the Drudge and on CNN and on Fox News and now on your show.

GLENN: Those damn CNN people.

LeFEBVRE: Even ESPN had a blog about it.

GLENN: How did they tie that into sports in

LeFEBVRE: I have no idea. It was on ESPN and it was on our New Orleans Saints blog that our mayor had done this.

GLENN: Maybe they tied it in. Do you remember how the Baltimore Colts moved out of Baltimore in the middle of the night and just kind of abandoned the city? Maybe ESPN kind of went, oh, abandoned cities? Oh, it must be a sports story.

LeFEBVRE: Well, I think it was a little bit closer because this particular branch of the Marines has their public affairs officer based in New Orleans and so I think that's where the Saints tie-in came in, how it got to ESPN

GLENN: Okay, all right.

LeFEBVRE: The interesting thing is you would think, and you've dealt with these people on a pretty regular basis over the last few years. You would think that at some point he would say, like a sports guy, you know what, I'm really sorry, I made a mistake. No, yesterday at the state of the city address he said if this occasion rose again, I would do the exact same thing.

GLENN: Amen, brother. Kick those Marines out.

LeFEBVRE: That's right.

GLENN: Those damn, dirty Marines that you can never trust.

LeFEBVRE: And if you disagree with him and his terms of safeguarding Toledoans in his own words: We may disagree but you have my respect.

GLENN: Oh, gosh, I wish I could be reciprocal on that one. Let me ask you this: So he was safeguarding the people of Toledo from the Marines?

LeFEBVRE: Yes. According to him, his first priority, and this is again yesterday in his state of the city address, is the health and welfare and safety of Toledoans. I never asked for his help in my healthcare or my welfare.

GLENN: But Democrats do know about healthcare and welfare. So --

LeFEBVRE: That's what they want to do.

GLENN: Yeah. And usually everybody in the city is healthy because there's only like four people left and --

LeFEBVRE: I'm sorry to say some days that I'm still one of them.

GLENN: Okay. So he's guarding against the Marines and that's a good thing that you've got, that you've got -- you know you've got a mayor that if you're ever invaded by the Marines, he's going to kick them out.

LeFEBVRE: That's right. And at least the populists won't be frightened.

GLENN: Yes, okay. So Fred, thanks for filling us in on this and let us know what the cartoon mayor does, you know, if there's any other new developments.

LeFEBVRE: Well, I tell you what, the new development today city council is getting together at 2:00 here in Toledo and they are getting a resolution together. The worst part of it is they want to, according to the resolution, have the City of Toledo offer an apology. I think that's wrong. The City didn't do anything. It's the mayor that did.

GLENN: Why would the City of Toledo?

LeFEBVRE: Well, because that's council and they are all Democrats for the most part. Yesterday we did hold a demonstration outside.

GLENN: Did we -- hang on just a second. Wait, wait, wait. Didn't everybody else know about this, right?

LeFEBVRE: Everybody knew.

GLENN: It was only the mayor that kicked them out?

LeFEBVRE: Yeah.

GLENN: Yeah. City council should grow a set.

LeFEBVRE: That's what I said this morning.

GLENN: Yeah. Maybe they should just go to the mayor and say, you know what? You should probably offer an apology.

LeFEBVRE: That's exactly the way I feel. They shouldn't apologize. The city did nothing wrong. The citizens, in fact, have stood up for the Marines and have for years.

GLENN: Of course, of course they did. I mean, you know, it's not Berkeley, California, for the love of Pete.

LeFEBVRE: No, but we hate the idea that people are actually comparing us to Berkeley this week.

GLENN: You know what, because I read this story. I read the story yesterday and we talked and quite honestly laughed about it because of the cartoon mayor in the office yesterday. There's not a soul, at least at the CNN office or here, at least on my program I can speak for, that laughed about or compared Toledo to Berkeley. We compared the mayor to an idiot.

LeFEBVRE: Well, thank you. I appreciate that because the citizens here are behind the Marines 100%.

GLENN: I tell you what, you tell the mayor that if he just continues the policies that he's doing right now, he won't have to worry about anybody in town being afraid of the Marines because there will be no one left.

LeFEBVRE: Well, I appreciate it and I will pass that word on to him and let me just mention --

GLENN: Are you having lunch with him?

LeFEBVRE: -- very quickly before we go. We had a demonstration yesterday in front of city hall. We're doing one again today beginning at 3:00 for people who want to show their support for the armed forces and the Marines in particular.

GLENN: Unbelievable. Thanks, Fred.

LeFEBVRE: Thank you, Glenn.

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Barack Obama promised to radically transform the United States, and he did to an extent. But he dropped the radical posse and surrounded himself with people from within the system --- like the Clintons -- once he was elected.

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Revealing Bernie’s dark side — one 1980s quote at a time

For most Americans, the 1980s was marked by big hair, epic lightsaber battles, and school-skipping Ferris Bueller dancing his way into the hearts of millions.

But for Bernie Sanders — who, by the way, was at that time the oldest-looking 40-year-old in human history — the 1980s was a period of important personal milestones.

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Over the past few weeks, I have been reading news reports of Sanders recorded in the 1980s — because, you know, that's how guys like me spend their Saturday nights — and what I've found is pretty remarkable.

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Justin Haskins (Jhaskins@heartland.org) is editorial director of The Heartland Institute and editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com.