The Daily Signal - Native Venezuelan, Now Proud American, Warns of ‘Fruits of Socialism’

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

In the 1980s, Patricia Rucker’s family left Venezuela, planning that her father would work for a time in the U.S. “Venezuela to me was the most perfect country you could have on this earth,” Rucker recalls. “Not only beautiful weather--beautiful people, very moral, very safe, very free, never had an income tax. The Constitution of Venezuela was modeled after the U.S. Constitution.” But the family’s plans changed, even as Venezuela fundamentally changed. ”Hugo Chavez was able to win an election by making promises and sowing envy, telling folks you should have what others have, you should have whatever, the nice houses,” Rucker warns. “You should get this, you should get that.” Now a U.S. citizen and a West Virginia state senator, Rucker is speaking out about the dangers of socialism. We also cover the following stories: The House Democrats announce the next impeachment step. President Trump criticizes FBI Director Christopher Wray. Most Americans didn't talk politics at Thanksgiving. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, December 11th. I'm Kate Trinker. And I'm Daniel Davis. Patricia Rucker was born in Venezuela during a time of prosperity. She and her family moved to the U.S., but they always expected they'd move back. Well, that plan didn't pan out. The socialist wave that swept Venezuela resulted in her family's property being looted. Today, she's a U.S. citizen and proudly serves in the West Virginia Senate.

And she has a clear message for America about socialism. I recently sat down with Patricia and we'll share that conversation in just a bit. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and please encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. Democrats announced two articles of impeachment on Tuesday. Here's what House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, Democrat of New York, said via CNN. The House Committee on the judiciary is introducing two articles of impeachment. impeachment charging the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, with committing

high crimes and misdemeanors. The first article is for abuse of power. It is an impeachable offense for the President to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest. He also said this. This gives rise to the second article of impeachment for obstruction of Congress. Here, too, we see a familiar pattern in President Trump's misconduct. A president who declares himself above accountability, above the American people, and above Congress's power of impeachment, which is meant to protect against threats to our democratic institutions, is a president who sees himself as above the law.

Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also spoke via now this. The president's misconduct is as simple and as terrible as this. President Trump solicited a foreign nation, Ukraine, to publicly announce investigations into his opponent and a baseless conspiracy theory promoted by Russia to help his reelection campaign. President Trump abused the power of his office by conditioning two official acts to get Ukraine to help his re-election, the release of hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid that nation desperately needed, and a White House meeting with an ally trying to fend off Russian aggression. In so doing, he undermined our national security and jeopardized the integrity of our next election,

and he does so still. The evidence of the president's misconduct is overwhelming and uncontested. And how could it not be when the president's own words on July 25th? I would like you to do us a favor, though, lay so bare his intentions, his willingness to sacrifice the national security for his own personal interests. Schiff also addressed why House Democrats were moving forward right now. The argument, why don't you just wait, amounts to this. Why don't you just let him cheat in one more election?

Why not let him cheat just one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time? That is what that argument amounts to. The President's misconduct goes to the heart of whether we can conduct a free and fair election in 2020. It is bad enough for a candidate to invite foreign interference in our political process, but it is far more corrosive for a president to do so and to abuse his power to make it so. President Trump responded to House Democrats with a string of tweets on Tuesday. In one tweet, he said,

Shifty Shiff, a totally corrupt politician, made up a horrible and fraudulent statement, read it to Congress, and said those words came from me. He got caught, was very embarrassed, yet nothing happened to him for committing this fraud. He'll eventually have to answer for this. Trump also hit back at Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, who accused Trump of pressuring Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. Trump said, ridiculous, and he knows that is not true. Both the president and foreign minister of Ukraine said many times that there was no pressure. Nadler and the Dems know this, but refuse to acknowledge.

President Trump appears to be unhappy with FBI director Christopher Ray. Ray spoke to ABC News on Monday the same day the Inspector General report on the FBI's investigation and to Trump's campaign aides was released. What's the biggest takeaway and the most important takeaway from the report for you? Well, I think there's a number of takeaways that are important. One, that we fully cooperated with this independent review. Two, that we fully accept its findings and recommendations. three, that the Inspector General did not find political bias or improper motivations impacting the opening of the investigation or the decision to use certain investigative tools during

the investigations. Including Pfizer. Including Pfizer. But that the Inspector General did find a number of instances where employees either failed to follow our policies, neglected to exercise. exercise appropriate diligence or in some other way fell short of the standard of conduct and performance that we and that I as director expect of all of our employees. But again, we are and I am ordering 40 over 40 corrective actions to address all of those

things in a way that's robust and serious. And we're determined to learn the lessons from this report and make sure the FBI emerges from this even better and stronger. Ray also was asked about the deep state. As far as you know, based on the findings in the Inspector General report, is the FBI, was it part of some deep state? Well, I think that's the kind of label that is a disservice to the 37,000 men and women who work at the FBI, who I think tackle their jobs with professionalism, with rigor, with objectivity, and with courage. So that's not a term I would ever use to describe our workforce,

and I think it's an affront to them. Having said that, having said that, there are a number of things in this report that, in my view, fall well short of the standard of conduct and performance that we and that I expect of all our employees, and we're going to be taking a number of corrective steps to address that. The FBI director also said this. Was the launch the origination of the FBI probe into Russian interference involving U.S. citizens lawfully authorized and pursued?

Well, I think it's important for the American people to know that when the FBI opens an investigation, it does so with proper predication, with proper authorization based on the law and the facts and nothing else. and I think it's important that the Inspector General found that in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization. President Trump tweeted on Tuesday, I don't know what report current director of the FBI Christopher Ray was reading, but it sure wasn't the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men and women working there.

Well, despite all the impeachment drama this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has joined with the president to support his new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal. The deal is an update of NAFTA, which President Trump had called the worst trade deal in history. Progressive Democrats were able to win a number of provisions in the final trade deal, including stricter environmental and labor regulations. The AFL-CIO, a leading federal labor union, also endorsed the deal. Turns out Americans mostly got along this Thanksgiving. A new poll from Huffington Post and YouGov found that a mere 16% of Americans fessed up to talking politics over Turkey. And only 3% of Americans said they actually got into a fight over politics at Thanksgiving. Merriam Webster has announced its 2019 word of the year, they.

The dictionary site said it saw a 313% uptick in searches for the word they this year. That increase comes amid greater interest in gender-neutral terms. For instance, the American Psychological Association now officially recommends the use of the singular they, rather than he or she, when referring to someone whose gender is unknown. The use of they also signals a cultural shift on gender identity. They is typically the pronoun used by people who identify as non-binary or gender non-conforming. Up next, a conversation with Patricia Rucker, a Venezuelan by birth who's living the American dream. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share?

Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. We're coming to you from the annual meeting of Alec. That's the American Legislative Exchange Council this year in Phoenix, Arizona. And I'm joined now by Patricia Rucker. She's a state senator from West Virginia and the co-founder and former president of We the People of West Virginia, Jefferson County. Patricia, thanks for your time today. Absolutely.

Thank you for inviting me. So one of the very interesting things about you is that you were born in Venezuela and your family immigrated here. I believe in the early 80s, is that right? That's correct, 1981. Okay. And we came here, because of my father's work, we came here legally. He had a work visa. But we always planned on returning to Venezuela.

Venezuela, to me, was the most perfect country you could have on this earth. Not only beautiful weather, beautiful people, very moral, very safe, very free, never had an income tax. The Constitution of Venezuela was modeled after the U.S. Constitution. and close-knit family. I mean, really, I just can't tell you how beautiful it was. And we always intended to go back there. Now, I did meet my husband, and that's when I finally said, well, maybe I'm going to end up staying.

He's an American, and I did apply for a permanent residency after I graduated from college and got married. Having said that, just so you know, first of all, It took me like over eight years to become a citizen. That's how long, complicated it took. I had already had four children before I got my citizenship in 2004. But obviously a lot of folks know about what's happened to Venezuela. And I just want to briefly touch on the tragedy that it was.

Hugo Chavez was able to win election by making promises and sowing envy, telling folks you should have what others have. You should have whatever, the nice houses. You should get this. You should get that. And I mention it as a cautionary tale because so many Americans believe that we could never go down the road of Venezuela

or other countries. And I can tell you I never would have thought that would have happened to Venezuela either. And anyone who wants to see what the fruits of socialism is, all you have to do is just look, at this modern day example in 10 years. Chavez completely destroyed that freedom and that, you know, heritage. Venezuelans had been, you know, enjoying since essentially 18, 23, I believe.

Wow. And you still remember living there before you moved here? Absolutely. And of course, we went back every other summer where we were growing up because, again, my dad was here for work. They paid for us to go back every other summer and be in Venezuela. and almost all my relatives continue to live in Venezuela. Wow. Did the erosion of freedom and the socialism that came, is that a big reason why your family didn't go back? Yes, it is actually the main reason.

My parents were always planning on retiring to Venezuela. They kept their home all of this time in Venezuela, kept it up and everything else. One of the things that Chavez did within the first year and a half of his presidency was declared that if you weren't physically, living in your home, it meant you didn't need it. So anyone who wanted to break into a home that was empty, the government would protect the right to stay there. And so again, people don't understand those type of real life experiences with socialism and how it works. Another thing that

Chavez did that, of course, hurt the ability for my parents to retire is he nationalized almost everybody's savings or businesses. made it really difficult for you to retire because you would lose your money. So my parents only in 2014 or 15 did they finally give up on their dream of returning to Venezuela and applied for citizenship. Wow. Well, you mentioned the breaking into homes. Did that happen to your parents' house?

Yes, and to my grandparents' house. Because my grandparents died and the family wasn't exactly sure what they were going to do with the apartment. but in the meantime, the apartment was broken into and stolen. And there was no legal recourse, no way to sue anybody. I mean, think about it. If the police are told you are to protect the squatter who breaks into your home, who are you going to go to?

And, yeah, by that point, again, another thing that most people do not understand, we take it for granted here that the police are going to be law-biting and follow the law. The culture in South America, I think in general, not just in Venezuela, is, yes, obviously the police do. You know, they're supposed to enforce the law, but there's a lot of corruption. It's very often in a lot of countries, you know, you have to kind of pay them to make sure that they, you know, do what you ask them to do. In Venezuela, it became so much worse under Chavez. He did not care to end that kind of. corruption and it became where if you wanted to have any protection you better had the money to pay for it

and of course things have just gotten so much worse in the last few years it is it is no man's land at this point and because Maduro knows that he can't trust Venezuelans to support him he has hired Cuban nationals to be the military to be the protection and so do you think that these Cubans who are the ones that have the guns are going to care that much about Venezuela who are not happy, don't feel the election was secure, all of these concerns. No, they're not really on the people's side. And so essentially, I have to say, we've been taken over by foreign country. It's not Venezuela anymore.

It is Cuba who has taken over Venezuela and uses it for whatever their purposes and whatever they want. And there is no way to peacefully end that when the Venezuelan citizens do not have arms, do not have any way to fight back. Do you have relatives that are still there? Yes. You keep in touch with them? We do.

The ones who have access to electronic, you know, forms of communication, Facebook, WhatsApp, that kind of things we use to talk to them. But I will tell you, most of them are so terrified of their conversations being seen by the government that we usually cannot get real details on the truth of how bad things are. They tend to gloss over it and come. kind of hint at it. Only when somebody is able to escape, do we really hear about the truth of how bad it is. Wow. That's remarkable. It's almost like hearing from somebody behind the iron curtain back 40 years ago, but it's happening right now. It is. It is just like that. I mean,

unbelievable how scared they are of being inspired upon. Wow. Well, you're someone who has really lived the American dream. You moved here when you were just a child and became a teacher, but after, what was it, 20 years you decided to homeschool your children. Tell me about that process and why you made that shift. Sure. Just to let everybody know, I was a product of public school education and loved it and had a wonderful public school education here in the United States of America. When, like I was 11, I said, this is what I want to do. I want to teach. I was a single-minded focus. I would teach social studies in public schools. and when I graduated, I did that for about a year and a half or so, but I became pregnant with my firstborn,

and the minute they laid her in my arms, I knew I couldn't go back to the classroom. She was my priority. And I ended up having five children. And when my oldest was, it was time for her to go to kindergarten, she was diagnosed on the autism spectrum disorder. Needless to say, at that period of time, and we're talking around 2005 or so,

what's around the time she was starting school, the public schools really did not have a handle on how to handle autism students. And they wanted to put her in special ed, inclusive classroom with very severe special ed needs. And she really didn't need that kind of help. So I ended up deciding to homeschool her, and I fell in love with it. So I got a chance to teach, and not just social studies, but everything. So that's why 15 years, I basically homeschooled my children. and had a wonderful experience doing so, even though they had never been in the original plan.

So when you made that shift, I mean, did you take that on by yourself or were there resources at the time? Because I know a lot of folks, it's becoming a lot more common just in the last 10, 15 years. It sure has. When I started, there wasn't quite as much support as there is now, but definitely the pioneers had already set the stage, and there were some curriculums out there, accessible for us to use. And I definitely did find support. And where I live in West Virginia, unfortunately, the education is not as well as most people would like. And there is a very strong homeschooling community in Jefferson County, West Virginia.

Wow. So you've got five kids homeschooling, and you decided to run before the state Senate. And you were elected in 2016. What inspired you to run for office? Well, I will admit that a lot of it had to do with what happened to Venezuela. Chavez got elected in 2000. So by 2008, Venezuela was already pretty much lost. And I did not want to see my newly adopted country.

Remember, I became a citizen in 2004. I did not want to see it going down that same path. And some of the things that were said by the presidential candidate running in 2008 really concerned me. So I was one of those folks that got involved. Of course, you know about the Tea Party movement. And we the people of Jefferson County was the tea party that got created in my county. And yes, I was the founder of it.

But it was out of a deep desire to really stand up for what made America great, which is our Constitution and our rights. And it really concerns me that there are so many people willing to accept promises made and lose their freedom for those promises. And I've been doing the job always of trying to educate others. And deciding to run for office was an extension of that. I had already started going door to doors, founder of the Tea Party movement. I had gotten involved in elections to get good candidates elected who would protect those rights.

And, you know, it came to a point that my own representative was someone who nobody wanted to run against. So we were able to recruit folks for good folks that we could support. in all these different races, but not in mine. And very reluctantly, I put my name in. And the first time I ran, I lost by 110 votes. But I ran again. And this time for the Senate, and I won by over 5,000. Wow. How about that? Wow, 5,000 votes. So you're the chair now of the Education Committee in the state Senate. Obviously, as a teacher, I would assume you bring a lot of experience to that. How is your previous life as a teacher, you know, informing what you do now? Actually, I will tell you that it's almost held against me that I homeschooled. So it completely

discounts me as having any input because I homeschooled. So even though you were a public school teacher for 20 years? No, no, no. I was only a public school teacher for about a year and a half. Oh, okay. Sorry. But they don't count homeschooling as being an education. of any kind. And I will tell you, though, I did experience a really good public school education. I felt that was excellent. I really want to see that for every student. I want everyone to be able to say, just like I can say, I had a wonderful public education experience. So my goal has been to take away the hurdles that are stopping teachers from being able to teach and bring more local control into West Virginia because it is a very centralized educational system.

And I will say I do support educational choice. So for those parents who can't get what they need, like I couldn't for my oldest child, I want to make sure they have whatever they need, that that child be educated. I will tell you that as a homeschooling parent, not every parent can't homeschool, both for financial reasons or other reasons. But if their child is somehow not getting the education they need in the traditional public school, our priority as a state and as a people is to make certain that that child gets what they need. That should be what is most important. So if it means a private school,

if it means a public charter school, if it means giving them enough funds to get outside support or tutorials, I'm in favor of as many options as possible because I believe parents are the ones who can best know what their child needs. And I do not. ever want to tell a parent who cannot afford something their child needs, too bad. You know, I just can't imagine that. And it's hard for me to believe that there are those who say, no, absolutely, the tax dollars should only be in public education. Well, you know how hard it is to be a public school teacher?

Where you have 25, 30 students. And each of those students is unique and has different strengths and weaknesses. As a public school teacher, you have to try to help everybody. which generally means you teach to the middle. So that means there are kids on both sides of the spectrum that are not getting what they need. Giving more choices is not anti-public school. It is trying to make certain that we help everyone. Well, last year, there was a major teacher's strike in West Virginia,

which you must have been right in the middle of that controversy being on the education committee. What was that like? So I will confess that it was because of my education reform bill that the teachers went on strike. So I proposed a bill that was very comprehensive on education reform and needs. In addition to bringing more local control, it included a few changes to the funding mechanism, increasing the amount of money for nurses and counselors and psychologists for public schools. But it did include starting charter schools for the first school. in West Virginia, legalizing it.

It originally included ESAs for victims of bullying and students of special need. In addition to, you know, other technical things that were specifically to West Virginia, well, the charter school and the ESA portion caused the teachers to go on strike. And, I mean, really was driven by the unions who were telling the teachers, we cannot accept this under any circumstances. So even though it was just a very small, tiny, tiny amount of funding, they went on strike and they managed to table the bill indefinitely in the house because of their strike. And wasn't the National Education Association, the Lobby was pushing this?

Oh yes, they came to West Virginia. We had Randy Weingarten there helping support the strike and the protesting, which is funny when the national, you know, organizations, teachers unions were the originators of the Charter's. school idea. So I just find that very humorous. But I will tell you that when they killed the bill, I mean, that's the prerogative, right? They killed the bill. Well, then they came and still wanted the teacher pay raise that the governor had promised them. And in the Senate, we were very clear that when we said, well, we want education reform. So if we're not going to get education reform, we're not going to pass that teacher pay raise. So that hard stance that we made caused the governor to call for a special session on education reform, and after a very long extended

special session, we did finally get some education reform passed in the state of West Virginia. What kind of reforms? So we got three charter schools, and we open enrollment. I don't know if you know what that is, that allows students from a county to go to another public school, even outside of the county, and you only need permission of the school that's accepting you, not permission of the school that you're leaving. And we also got some of the other things we wanted to do like local control. Wow. And what are some of the things that you're looking to push in the next year or so? Well, I will tell you it's an election year. It's always

harder to do anything controversial in an election year. But we still have a lot of, you know, things that we still want to get to teachers, even though we were able to fund more counselors and psychologists and nurses for the schools. We still don't have enough funding for one nurse in every single school. We'd love to see if we could reach that goal. I think that's important. And then there's other things that we could do that won't necessarily cost money, but just more accountability, clarifying what it is that we expect our graduates to have.

There's been a lot of discussion here, Alec, about civic education. And, you know, I'll be honest, I haven't looked. And consider not my history major and was a history teacher, you would have thought I would have looked into that. But I haven't looked to see what it is that we require. You know, so there's lots of ways we can still continue to work on this. Fantastic. Well, we'll have to leave it there, unfortunately.

But Patricia, thank you so much for your time today. No problem. Thank you for having me. It's because of support from listeners like you that we can continue to produce podcasts like Heritage Explains and SCOTUS 101. and you can help us keep it going by visiting www.heritage.org slash podcast today to make your tax deductible gift. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback.

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