Rush Limbaugh

Rhetoric DOES Affect Public Attitudes, And Incites Unstable People: Time For Responsible And Civil Dialogue Before We Have Greater Tragedy Emerge!

Ronald 3 Comments

The tragic events of yesterday, leading to the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords; and the slaughter of three senior citizens; a nine year girl born on September 11, 2001; a congressional aide of Giffords; and a federal judge, is a warning sign to everyone that the tone and content of rhetoric DOES have a real effect on all of us, and tends to incite unstable people to violent action!

Therefore, it is essential for everyone to tone down their language and promote responsible and civil dialogue, and it is time to DEMAND that Sarah Palin behave in a civil way when she utters her never ending statements on Facebook and Twitter; that candidates such as Sharron Angle who talk about “Second Amendment remedies” be, like she was, repudiated by the voters as reckless and irresponsible; that a local talk show host (Joyce Kaufman in South Florida) who talks about the use of “bullets, not ballots” be denied the right to use the airwaves to promote her hate and paranoid behavior; that national talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, who care not a whit about building up hatred and resentment as long as they enrich themselves, be denied the right to spew their poison over the airwaves; and that politicians of all persuasions be called to account if they spread hysteria, fear, and division through their rhetoric!

Does anyone have the right to “shout fire in a crowded theater” and claim it is freedom of speech? The Supreme Court, in Schenck V. US in 1919, said NO, and that should apply to people in public office, media people, and all of us, who need to understand that responsible and civil dialogue is essential, or one day, we will have a tragedy of greater magnitude emerge, on the level of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, or a renewed concept of civil war, where everyone suffers because of irresponsible, reckless rhetoric!

Congressman Darrell Issa: Publicity Seeker And Witch Hunter! :(

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Congressman Darrell Issa of California is about to become Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and that means he will be in the news on a daily basis, as he seeks to promote an agenda.

And what is that agenda? It is to prove what he believes: that the Obama Administration is the most corrupt administration we have had in a long time!

On the Rush Limbaugh radio show in October, Issa went so far as to say that Barack Obama was the most corrupt President of modern times, but has now changed it to say it is not him, but his administration, without clarifying what the difference is, or to explain what he means!

But then, is it necessary to have facts, or is it not just enough to throw around charges and accusations, and make the front pages of the news, and prevent the administration from trying to deal with real problems, by having to deal with constant subpoenas for material, and appearances by officials at constant hearings? 🙁

Is Darrell Issa anything more than a publicity seeker and witch hunter, in many ways similar to Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who claimed Communists in every bed and under every bed and everywhere else? 🙁

It might be interesting to investigate Darrell Issa himself, who never saw any problems during the Bush Administration, and happens to be the wealthiest member of Congress, and is only surpassed in personal wealth by one politician in America–Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City!

This is also the man who led the movement to “recall” Governor Gray Davis of California only months after he won a solid re-election victory in 2002, leading to the special “recall” election which made Arnold Schwarzenegger Governor, after Issa came to the conclusion that he was unable to compete in that race itself! 🙁

Is Darrell Issa the savior of America, when he fails to realize that the Nixon, Reagan, and second Bush Administrations had plenty of scandal, which he conveniently forgets, while he throws around wild accusations against Barack Obama and his administration? 🙁

What it comes down to is that Darrell Issa is a nightmare for the country, and will contribute nothing positive to deal with the many problems the nation faces in the next two years! 🙁

South Florida Conservative Talk Show Host Joyce Kaufman And Congressman Elect Allen West: Two “Wingnuts” That Will Make News! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

One of the most notable Tea Party Movement favorites who won election to the House of Representatives last week was Allen West, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, who was forced to leave the military after inappropriate treatment of a prisoner In Iraq in 2003, and who has been associated with right wing, pro gun groups!

With large amounts of money, including support from Karl Rove associated groups, West defeated Congressman Ron Klein of Boca Raton, in one of the most confrontational campaigns in the country! 🙁

West is a “wing nut” who will make lots of news with his comments and actions, seen by many as an African American male counterpart of Michele Bachmann, Congresswoman from Minnesota, who is constantly making outrageous statements and calling for extremist actions against the opposition party, and confrontation in foreign policy!

It is bad enough that West will be a “nightmare” in Congress, but he has now appointed right wing “nut job” talk show host Joyce Kaufman, who is a South Florida “wannabe” replica of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity on the local level! 🙁

Kaufman has been an outrageous talk show host on WFTL in Fort Lauderdale, spewing poison, hate, and nastiness, calling for violent actions against illegal immigrants, war against Islam, and ridiculing Democrats in despicable language, such as calling Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Wasserman Schmutz (dirt in Yiddish)! She has used similar assaulting language against other Democrats, including former Congressman Robert Wexler, and other Democrats on the national scene, and has been totally negative in every way toward President Barack Obama!

She will now gain national attention, which she craves, as the Chief of Staff to Congressman West, and she is sure to be a “lightning rod”, drawing controversy by her statements and actions, instead of being a quiet, behind the scenes figure as Chief of Staff!

It is odd for a political figure to pick a media personality to be the leader of his staff! It is also weird that Kaufman, who constantly promotes states rights and hatred of the federal government, will now be a federal government employee and be paid by taxpayers for her work!

Interesting example of total hypocrisy on her part, and it also brings to mind that she somehow expects to be a “correspondent” for her radio station while working for West, which is seen by people on Capitol Hill as a conflict of interest, and totally inappropriate, and possibly illegal to boot!

But then conservatives like to rail against government, and then feed at the public trough as they pursue their agenda to make this country a land of the elite doing everything they can to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class slipping constantly down in the direction of poverty!

The voters of the 22nd Congressional District of Florida will eventually realize the blunder they have made, brought about by large amounts of corporate cash without limit, thanks to the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case in January of this year! 🙁

The Conspiracy Industry And Barack Obama: The Trip To India!

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President Barack Obama has been accused of being a secret Muslim, a Kenyan, a non citizen, a Socialist, a Marxist, planning to put people into government sponsored concentration camps, etc etc etc, ad infinitum! 🙁

Now the right wing nuts, or as John Avlon calls them, “wingnuts”, claim that President Obama’s trip to India is costing the government $200 million a day, and requires 40 planes and includes 3,000 guests, on what is portrayed as a “vacation”, rather than a trip to promote economic interests and diplomacy! 🙁

This conspiracy theory began with Michele Bachmann, and has been promoted by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other people, rightfully called “wingnuts” by John Avlon! 🙁

Why do people choose to make up such lies, and why do so many millions of Americans choose to believe this propaganda? 🙁

As former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York once said, a person is entitled to his opinions, but not to his own facts! 🙁

It is scary how so many millions of Americans do not seem to realize that they are being bamboozled, being made out to be jerks who have no ability to analyze and evaluate evidence, and instead are manipulated by liars who have no scruples or ethics, and meanwhile are rewarded with public office and obscene wealth based on their despicable propaganda! 🙁

Interesting Coincidence: Rush Limbaugh And Pastor Terry Jones Were Missouri High School Classmates And Graduates Of Class Of 1969!

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What an amazing occurrence to discover that talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, who has created a stir with his threat to burn Korans on September 11, are classmates and graduates of the same high school in Missouri in the year 1969!

Both are a menace to America, and in many ways, Limbaugh has, by his rhetoric, encouraged wing nuts like Pastor Jones, who has managed by his behavior to hold American foreign policy and its war effort as hostages in his insane need to draw attention to himself! 🙁

Anyone who is sane can see that Jones is a hateful, sick charlatan, the worst image possible of a Christian pastor! This man was involved in scandal and financial irregularity in a church in Germany that he headed in the 1980s!

Is it really a surprise that he is an obvious crook and certainly went into a career of being a pastor to avoid taxes, a favorite tactic of so called “religious” people who peddle hate and division by becoming pastors without any, or limited, religious training, gain ignorant followers, and meanwhile manage to gain a tax advantage because of their creation of churches, which are often just storefront businesses to raise money! 🙁

This man not only has no concern for the damage he is doing to America, but also peddles hate of gays, another favored method of some so called “pastors” who claim to be following Jesus Christ, but totally distort his message of peace and tolerance and harmony!

The right wing talk show hosts and Fox News Channel helped to create this monster by their hateful rhetoric against Muslims, and they have made our national security much more a problem for the President, because they preach a war against Islam, instead of against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who are the enemy, not one billion Muslims around the world!

There Is No Global Warming Or Climate Change! Yeh, Right! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and most other conservatives and Republicans claim there is no global warming or climate change!

Of course, they are right, heh? NO, THEY ARE TOTALLY WRONG, and the evidence continues to grow! 🙁

We are on the way to the warmest year on record, and July could be the hottest month since weather data were first collected in the late 19th century!

At the same time, Russia has been suffering from the highest temperatures on record, and dealing with disastrous wildfires unseen in their recorded history!

We have seen warmer weather conditions in the past decade than at any time since records have been kept!

We are seeing more and more erosion of shorelines all over the world, and the rapid deterioration of icebergs in the Arctic at an alarming rate!

As carbon emissions rise, the crisis is growing worse, but yet the Congress is unable to gain support across party lines to deal with the environmental crisis that the planet faces!

Instead, we are being told that there is no crisis, and instead we are allowing so called “religious” zealots to defy our scientists who warn of impending disaster in the next century!

The argument seems to be that if we “pray” enough, then we can overlook science in favor of religion! Faith will solve our problems, rather than observable evidence based upon research and investigation!

When religion and science mix, religion wins, science loses, and mankind suffers! 🙁

Fox News Channel: Reminiscent Of Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, And Jesse Helms! :(

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In the 1960s, we saw the passage of landmark civil rights legislation, designed to end the racial divide and provide equal opportunity in America!

Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who had run as a segregationist Presidential candidate in 1948 on the States Rights Party, voted against it, and switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party!

Governor George Wallace of Alabama was defiant in the face of civil rights advancements, and exploited the issue of race in his several presidential campaigns, including his third party American Independent Party candidacy in 1968!

In the same era, Lester Maddox, a restaurateur in Georgia, who gave his white patrons little pick axes as a symbol of what would happen if any African American dared to enter his chicken restaurant, was elected Governor, and shamed his state, that such a prejudiced person could be elected to the state’s executive mansion! The state of Georgia finally redeemed itself by electing as his successor a peanut farmer from Plains, Jimmy Carter, who advanced racial progress in his four year term as Governor, before running for and winning the Presidency!

From 1972-2002, North Carolina elected Jesse Helms to the US Senate, after a disgraceful career as a segregationist talk show host on radio! Helms proceeded to use the issue of race constantly against his opponents, including an African American competitor, Harvey Gantt, who had been Mayor of Charlotte, and twice opposed him in the election campaigns of 1990 and 1996! Nothing racist was avoided by Helms, who gave no concern that he was promoting hate and division in the nation with his poisonous prejudice!

All of the above politicians, and many others, utilized the fear of middle class and poor whites that any advancement of African Americans was a threat to them,and that they were being denied opportunity because of black progress!

Well, the reader might say, that is all history, so why relate it now?

The answer is that racism and prejudice is alive and well at FOX NEWS CHANNEL and on talk radio, as they have constantly berated Barack Obama, accusing him and his administration of racism, rather than looking themselves in the eye! 🙁

So now the race baiters are Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage, and many other conservative activists, who have no shame, and yet are no different than their predecessors in Southern politics from Thurmond to Helms! 🙁

Now it is the so called NEWS MEDIA on the right, acting as if they are legitimate, who are the promoters of race hatred! 🙁

And all of these characters have distorted the 101 year history of the NAACP, an organization dedicated to interracial understanding and cooperation, whose name “COLORED PEOPLE”, does not refer to only African Americans, but people of all colors and races who have faced discrimination and prejudice in this country’s history. They are still facing it today, as the conservative activists leave no stone unturned to turn whites against African Americans, who are supposedly not entitled to equality and advancement, and that it is only coming about at the disadvantage and loss of opportunity of whites!

What a terrible lie, and a disgrace, that these forces spew so much hatred and division, and are seen by many people as legitimate! 🙁

They are no better than Thurmond, Wallace, Maddox, or Helms! They should all be ashamed of themselves! 🙁

A New Rush Limbaugh Outrage: When Will Republicans Condemn Him? :(

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Talk show host Rush Limbaugh is infamous for his outrageous statements and signs of prejudice and racism, but now he is, even for him, beyond the pale, in his latest accusation against the Obama Administration!

Rush claims on his radio show that President Obama has purposely put America into an economic downturn because he is black, and wants to wreak revenge on America for the institution of slavery! 🙁

So the President put us into an economic downturn, heh? Apparently, Rush has conveniently forgotten that the economic collapse began under Republican President George W. Bush and Republican Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson!

And does Rush really believe that Obama could imagine that putting us into a deep recession is an appropriate “payback” that he could win support on, and keep his party in control?

Is the President capable of political suicide, willing to self destruct because of resentment over discrimination and racism? Is this really a conspiracy of minorities against the white majority?

If one believes what Rush believes on this issue, then he or she is as paranoid and delusional as Rush is!

But the question is does Rush really believe this, or is this just a way to get attention and make money and divide people?

Face the facts: Rush Limbaugh is a demagogue, who cares for no one except himself, and enriches himself on the stupidity and loony nature of his followers, who in many cases are certifiable!

It is time for Republican leaders to denounce him, as he harms the image of their party with his ranting and raving! 🙁

Father’s Day, Family Values, And Hypocritical Conservatives! :(

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President Obama is an ideal father, and has a stable, well adjusted family life!

This is, unfortunately, not as typical as one might think, with many families lacking a father, whether by tragedy or by irresponsibility! 🙁

Obama is an excellent spokesman for family values, and yet he is under constant attack by people who are pure hypocrites! 🙁

There are many people in the media and politics who constantly advocate family values, but do not practice what they preach! 🙁

This includes, for instance, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh (four marriages), and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (three marriages)!

While no one is claiming that liberals and Democrats have an ideal record as parents and promoting family values, it is a well known fact that there are many more conservatives and Republicans who have a sorry record on these matters, even though they are the ones constantly promoting family values to gain political advantage! 🙁

So on this Father’s Day, let us salute President Obama for his outstanding image as a dad and a husband! 🙂

Tea Party and Militia Right Wing Extremism On Display! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Today was the anniversary of Oklahoma City, and right wing gun toting militias and Tea Party activists were demonstrating in Arlington, Virginia, fully armed, and in the District of Columbia without arms because of DC restrictions. There were also demonstrations all over the country by people seeing conspiracy, and concerned about “internment camps”, and spouting racism in many cases, unwilling to accept the Obama Presidency as legitimate.

All kinds of wacky statements were made by so called “preachers” and right wing radicals across the country, including former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo stating that we needed to send Barack Obama back to his “homeland”, Kenya; and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann referring to the Obama Administration as the “gangster” government in a weekend speech. Recently, Sarah Palin spoke about “reloading” to promote and protect basic constitutional rights.

The failure of these politicians to realize that they are helping to create and light the fuse of potential violence, and to create a toxic political atmosphere is extremely disturbing. Talk radio and Fox News Channel also continue to encourage propaganda and lies to further their agenda of making it impossible to unify the nation around anything the Obama Administration proposes, or attempts to accomplish.

And when Rush Limbaugh asserts that the Iceland volcanic ash is God’s way of punishing America and the world for the passage of the Health Care Reform legislation, what can one say except that rhetoric is becoming more ridiculous and loony! There is absolutely no sense of responsibility or culpability in Limbaugh or other talk show hosts realizing the deleterious effect they have on millions of easily manipulated listeners and watchers who could be provoked to disastrous actions that we would all mourn, if god forbid they were to happen! 🙁