15 years of excellence

SirStefan32 · August 1st, 2003, 09:06 AM

Today marks 15 years of Rush Limbaugh's broadcast excellence.

I congradulate Mr. Limbaugh on this accomplishment, and as a tribute, I am goign to post something interesting:

Rush Limbaugh's Original & Updated 35 'Undeniable Truths'

The "Undeniable Truths" were part of an article he wrote for the
Sacramento Union back in 1988. Here they are:

1. The greatest threat to humanity lies in the nuclear arsenal of the
USSR.
2. The greatest threat to humanity lies in the USSR.
3. Peace does not mean the elimination of nuclear weapons.
4. Peace does not mean the absence of war.
5. War is not obsolete.
6. Ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force.
7. There is only one way to get rid of nuclear weapons - use them.
8. Peace cannot be achieved by developing a "understanding" with the
Russian People.
9. When Americans oppose America, it is not always courageous and sacred;
it is sometimes dangerous.
10. Communism Kills.
11. Neither the US, nor anyone else, imposes freedom on the peoples of
other nations.
12. Freedom is God given.
13. In the USSR, peace means the absence of opposition.
14. To free peoples, peace means the absence of threats and the presence
of justice.
15. The Peace Movement in the US, whether by accident or design, is
pro-Communist.
16. The collective knowledge and wisdom of seasoned citizens is the most
valuable, yet untapped, resource our young-people have.
17. The greatest football team in the history of civilization is the
Pittsburgh Steelers of 1975-1980.
18. There is no such thing as war atrocities.
19. War itself is an atrocity.
20. There is a God.
21. Abortion is wrong.
22. Morality is not defined and cannot be defined by individual choice.
23. Evolution cannot explain Creation.
24. Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to
the mainstream of society.
25. Love is the only human emotion that cannot be controlled.
26. The only difference between Mikhail Gorbachev and previous Soviet
leaders, is that Gorbachev is alive.
27. Soviet Leaders are just left-wing dictators.
28. Abe Lincoln saved this nation.
29. The L.A. Raiders will never be the team that they were when they
called Oakland their home.
30. The US will again go to war.
31. To more and more people, a victorious US is a sinful US.
32. This is frightening and ominous.
33. There will always be poor people.
34. This is not the fault of the rich.
35. You should thank God for making you an American; and instead of
feeling guilty about it, help spread our ideas worldwide.

Rush has updated this list, many of the "old" UTOL having become
somewhat dated (but no less true for being in the past tense!) As read
by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show, Friday, February 18, 1994:

(All equally truthful: number 1 is not more or less important than 35.)

1. There is a distinct singular American culture - rugged individualism
and self-reliance - which made America great.
2. The vast majority of the rich in this country did not inherit their
wealth; they earned it. They are the country's achievers, producers,
and job creators.
3. No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.
4. Evidence refutes liberalism.
5. There is no such thing as a New Democrat.
6. The Earth's eco-system is not fragile.
7. Character matters; leadership decends from character.
8. The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you
cut it down.
9. Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the twentieth century.
10. The 1980s was not a decade of greed but a decade of prosperity; it was
the longest period of peacetime growth in American history.
11. Abstinence prevents sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy -every
time it's tried.
12. Condoms only work during the school year.
13. Poverty is not the root ("rut") cause of crime.
14. There's a simple way to solve the crime problem: obey the law; punish
those who do not.
15. If you commit a crime, you are guilty.
16. Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud.
17. The way to improve our schools is not more money, but the
reintroduction of moral and spiritual values, as well as the four
"R's": reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic, and Rush.
18. I am not arrogant.
19. My first 35 Undeniable Truths are still undeniably true.
20. There is a God.
21. There is something wrong when critics say the problem with America is
too much religion.
22. Morality is not defined by individual choice.
23. The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're
not liberals.
24. Feminism was established as to allow unattractive women easier access
to the mainstream of society.
25. Follow the money. When somebody says, "It's not the money," it's
always the money.
26. Liberals attempt through judicial activism what they cannot win at the
ballot box.
27. Using federal dollars as a measure, our cities have not been
neglected, but poisoned with welfare dependency funds.
28. Progress is not striving for economic justice or fairness, but
economic growth.
29. Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare.
Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.
30. Compassion is no substitute for justice.
31. The culture war is between the winners and those who think they're
losers who want to become winners. The losers think the only way they
can become winners is by banding together all the losers and then
empowering a leader of the losers to make things right for them.
32. The Los Angeles riots were not caused by the Rodney King verdict. The
Los Angeles riots were caused by rioters.
33. You could afford your house without your government - if it weren't
for your government.
34. Words mean things.
35. Too many Americans can't laugh at themselves anymore.

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:16 AM

Nice to see you talk up a bigot...is he your role model?:

June 7, 2000

Limbaugh: A Color Man Who Has A Problem With Color?
by Jeff Cohen and Steve Rendall

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh may be returning to television. He recently auditioned for a job as color commentator on ABC's "Monday Night Football." The tryout followed weeks of self-promotion by the self-styled "truth detector" to the millions who listen daily to his syndicated radio show on some 600 stations.

Limbaugh's audition is stirring controversy. Sports columnist Thomas Boswell quipped that if Limbaugh joins "Monday Night Football" then baseball's game of the week broadcasters might "team up with John Rocker."

Veteran sports writer Michael Wilbon, who is black, indicated a boycott might result: "If Rush Limbaugh is put in that booth, I will NOT listen to the broadcast," he wrote in a Washington Post chat session. "His views on people like me are well documented and I would find it insulting and hypocritical to watch him…There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands who feel the same way I do."

If ABC hires Limbaugh, it's not clear a boycott will materialize. What is clear is that his expressed views on racial matters -- from the spiteful to the sophomoric -- would make him an odd color commentator. Indeed, CBS Sports dismissed Jimmy the Greek Snyder for ignorant racial remarks, less derisive than some of Limbaugh's.

As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." A decade ago, after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

In 1992, on his now-defunct TV show, Limbaugh expressed his ire when Spike Lee urged that black schoolchildren get off from school to see his film Malcolm X: "Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out."

In a similar vein, here is Limbaugh's mocking take on the NAACP, a group with a ninety-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

When Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the "Movin' On Up" theme song from TV's "Jeffersons" when he mentioned her. Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting "ax" for "ask"-- when discussing black leaders.

Such quotes and antics -- many compiled by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) for our 1995 book -- offer a whiff of Limbaugh's racial sensibility. So does his claim that racism in America "is fueled primarily by the rantings and ravings" of people like Jesse Jackson. Or his ugly reference two years ago to the father of Madonna's first child, a Latino, as "a gang-member type guy" -- an individual with no gang background.

In 1994, Limbaugh mocked St. Louis for building a rail line to East St. Louis "where nobody goes." East St. Louis is home to roughly 40,000 residents -- 98 percent of whom are African-Americans. One of its 40,000 "nobodies" is star NFL linebacker Bryan Cox.

Once, in response to a caller arguing that black people need to be heard, Limbaugh responded: "They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?" That's not an unusual response for a talk radio host playing to an audience of "angry white males." It may not play so well among National Football League players, 70 percent of whom are African American.

Compared to some talk radio hosts, racism is not central to Rush Limbaugh's shtick. But there has been a pattern of commentary indicating his willingness to exploit prejudice against blacks to further his on-air arguments.

ABC has the right to hire Limbaugh, even at the risk of alienating members of its audience. ("Monday Night Football" is the second-most watched TV show in black households). Thrust into the world of pro football where Limbaugh himself would be something of a racial minority, is it possible that he'd rise above his history of racial bigotry and insensitivity? Not likely.

When all is said and done, the athletes are the key players on "Monday Night Football." It would be great to know how they'd feel about a color man who seems to have trouble with people of color.

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:19 AM

September/October 1994

More Inaccuracy and Irrationality From Rush Limbaugh
If You Remember the 60's...You're Not Rush Limbaugh
LIMBAUGH: "The liberals sit out there and suggest, as Vic Fazio did, that it is the radical right that's acting in a stealth manner. And the Christians and the religious right are about to take over America. Note that Mr. Fazio probably had no trouble with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King when he entered the political fray. The Democrats had no trouble with the Berrigan brothers during the Vietnam War era, and they were priests. The Democrats had no trouble with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman entering the political fray and running the Students for a Democratic Society. In short, Democrats have never had any problem with liberal religious people being involved in politics." (Radio, 7/11/1994)
REALITY: Where to begin? Rep. Vic Fazio probably didn't have any trouble with Martin Luther King's entering the political fray--he was 12 at the time of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that brought King to national prominence. But Democrats certainly had a problem with King: He was wiretapped by President John Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Federal harassment of King intensified under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson.

"The Democrats had no trouble with the Berrigan brothers"? In fact, the brothers gained national attention through highly publicized protests against Johnson's Vietnam policies.

Neither Jerry Rubin nor Abbie Hoffman were religious leaders. They ran the Yippies, which was not connected to SDS. And no serious observer of the 1960s could claim that "the Democrats had no trouble" with the Yippies, who were most famous for their demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

"This Kind of Thing Goes on All the Time"
LIMBAUGH: Responding to comments by AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland following the passage of NAFTA: "Lane Kirkland was asked, 'You mean you're going to take action to help the [opposition]?' 'Oh no no no. I'm not going to do that. But you can do damage by not doing anything.' That's vote suppression. Isn't it?... I mean, they're trying to nail Republicans and Ed Rollins to the wall, and they're trying to decertify Christie Whitman's election, and here's Lane Kirkland, brilliant man, chairman [sic] of the AFL-CIO, talking about how, 'Well, we just won't do anything,' and 'Hey, that hurts too.' So there you have it, a tantamount admission to vote suppression and an indication that this kind of thing goes on all the time." (TV, 1/28/94)
REALITY: Limbaugh is comparing Kirkland's threat--that the AFL-CIO would not work for candidates who voted for NAFTA--to Ed Rollins' claim that he had paid black religious leaders to not get out the vote in the 1993 New Jersey election. One is politics; the other, if Rollins hadn't retracted his claim, would be a crime.

Man of the People
LIMBAUGH: "All of these rich guys--like the Kennedy family and Perot--pretending to live just like we do and pretending to understand our trials and tribulations and pretending to represent us, and they get away with this." (TV, 1/28/1994)
REALITY: Limbaugh biographer Paul Colford estimates that Limbaugh's earnings in 1994 will top $18 million (Newsday, 8/4/94).

Lyin' King
LIMBAUGH: "On April 23, 1994, a woman named Barbara Schoener, 40 years old, was killed by an 82-pound mountain lion in El Dorado County, California.... She has two kids and a husband. The collection fund had been started for a trust fund for the kids and their education, but at the same time a companion fund had been started by a bunch of animal rights activists for the orphaned lion cubs.... As of May 23, the orphaned mountain lion had received $21,000 in donations and Barbara Schoener's two kids had received around $9,000." (TV, 7/5/94)
REALITY: Long after this story got debunked, Limbaugh continued to repeat it. On May 31, Folsom City Zoo offical Terry Jenkins sent a letter to Limbaugh correcting an earlier broadcast: "There has never been a 'trust fund for the kitten' as you reported, nor any other fundraising efforts by the zoo or anyone else (with the exception of $36 raised by the coffee store across the street). There certainly have not been any 'animal rights people' deciding to set one up as you claim they have." ABC's 20/20 debunked the story on June 4, with Barbara Walters concluding: "Unsolicited public donations have come in for the cub, but so far they total less than $3,000, so people do care more about children than cubs." Yet more than a month later, Limbaugh was still sticking with his distorted version.

schutd · August 1st, 2003, 09:20 AM

I love the Jesse Jackson comment, and he waould equate that with rule 35 that none of us are willing to laugh at ourselves. Of course, he's not black. If he started in on the red neck trailer trash that this country also has a large population of, he would alienate the majority of his audience I suppose...

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:20 AM

Limbaugh's Inaccurate Responses to Charges of Inaccuracy
Rush Limbaugh has tried to defend a few of the dozens of inaccuracies FAIR documented in "Limbaugh's Reign of Error" (Extra!, 7-8/94). Unfortunately, his responses to charges of inaccuracy were filled with the same sorts of inaccuracies that our original report documented.
Limbaugh's most extended response was made on his July 5 radio show, where he took issue with four of FAIR's 42 items. In a July 14 USA Today column, where he referred to us four separate times as a "far-left media attack-dog group," Limbaugh defended one other item and repeated his response to another. The other "charges will be refuted in due course," Limbaugh promised.

As EXTRA! went to press, here's all that Limbaugh had to say in defending his errors.

1. Congress vs. the United States
FAIR quoted Limbaugh from his TV show talking about the Gulf War: "Everybody in the world was aligned with the United States except who? The United States Congress." We pointed out that both houses of Congress had voted to authorize use of force in the Gulf.
Limbaugh singled this out on his radio show as "an example of what they've done in this report": "They claim that I said the only institutions who did not support George Bush in the Gulf War were the United States Congress, the United States House and Senate.... I did say that, and when I said it, it was true."

Good answer--except it's a lie. Limbaugh made the remark on April 18, 1994--more than three years after Congress voted to authorize force.

2. The World's Best Health Care
In his book See, I Told You So, Limbaugh issued this invitation: "If you have any doubts about the status of American health care, just compare it with that in other industrialized nations." When we compared the U.S. with other industrialized nations--life expectancy and infant mortality--we found that the U.S. ranked near the bottom on both counts.
Limbaugh felt this was unfair. "Those two areas, those stats have almost nothing to do with the quality of American medical care," he remarked. "All the stats reflect is the epidemic of low-birth weight babies born to teenage and drug-addicted mothers, as well as the large numbers of homicides in American cities and drug-related deaths."

The comment shows how little Limbaugh knows about health care. Infant mortality, far from having "almost nothing to do" with the quality of health care, is closely linked with the availability of prenatal care. The mortality rate for infants whose mothers received little or no prenatal care is almost 10 times that of mothers who received frequent prenatal care, according to figures from the National Center for Health Statistics.

And the Centers for Disease Control estimate that homicide lowers U.S. life expectancy by about three months--which would do almost nothing to improve our rank. (The CDC did not calculate the effects of "drug-related deaths," but since illegal drugs kill far fewer people than homicide, they have even less impact on life expectancy.)

3. The Vanishing Forest Statistic:
Limbaugh seemed irate that we corrected his claims about forestland. "Then they try to claim I'm wrong about the amount of acreage of forest land in this country," he said on his radio show. "They're wrong. I mean, I'm--we're in the process of researching it, all this, and it would take me from now 'til when the program's over to read some of this stuff. Here are the current facts. In 1952, the U.S. had 664 million acres of forest land; in 1987, the number had climbed to 731 million acres."
This is a good example of Limbaugh trying to change the subject when he knows he's wrong. Here's what he said on his Feb. 18, 1994 radio show: "Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than we did at the time the Constitution was written?"

The Constitution was not written in 1952, but in 1789. "We have about two-thirds of the forest area we had then," Douglas MacCleery, a historian with the U.S. Forest Service, told FAIR.

4. Chelsea's White Guilt
Limbaugh tried to pass the buck on his claim that students at Chelsea Clinton's school had to write an essay called "Why I Feel Guilty Being White." It's a silly claim, given that 28 percent of the students at the school are not white. "My source for this story is CBS News," he had originally said. "I am not making this up."
In response to FAIR's report, Limbaugh said, "They say I'm wrong, it never happened, and that I made it up. But my quote was--my source was a CBS News fax, CBS News Service, that was sent to WABC radio in New York, which alerted me to this alleged incident. CBS cited Playboy magazine's February article, 'Unbearable Whiteness of Being,' and Playboy had cited Heterodoxy magazine, September of 1993."

He refined this explanation in his USA Today column, where he now described his source as "CBS Morning Resource, a wire service for radio talk shows run by CBS's radio networks." "Playboy, Heterodoxy, and CBS may well have been wrong," Limbaugh wrote, "but I quoted the story accurately and accurately cited my source."

But the source he had originally cited was CBS News--not CBS Morning Resource, an "infotainment" service. "CBS News never reported such a story," CBS News Vice President Larry Cooper wrote in a letter to USA Today (7/20/94). "Limbaugh's source was actually Playboy magazine. The story, crediting Playboy, was distributed to radio stations via the CBS Radio Morning Resource.... Morning Resource is not associated with CBS News."

Limbaugh reported a false claim and misidentified his source. But to hear Limbaugh tell it, quoting an inaccurate source somehow means that you are accurate. What it really means is that you failed to check out your source.

Heterodoxy, a right-wing tabloid, cited no source for the story, and couldn't remember where they got it from when we called them. But the first reference seems to be a story on Sidwell Friends in City Paper, a D.C. weekly (7/16/93). After rechecking with his (anonymous) source--a parent of a Sidwell student--reporter Paul Gifford now says that the actual title of the essay assigned to one class of 7th and 8th graders was "Should White People Feel Guilty and Why."

5. Discouraging political activism
After FAIR debunked Limbaugh's denials that he encourages political activism by his listeners, he came back with this in his USA Today column: "I don't have 'troops.' I do not encourage listeners to call anybody. In fact, I do just the opposite."
He discourages listeners from making political phone calls? That's not what he did last July 16, when he urged listeners to call the Democratic National Committee to ask who told Hillary to say she tried to go into the military. Or on June 30, when he twice read through a list of U.S. representatives who hadn't signed on to a Limbaugh-endorsed deficit cutting plan, adding coyly: "If you heard your congressman's name--you heard your congressman's name."

Day after day, Limbaugh organized opposition to the pro-Clinton health care caravans. Here he is on July 27: "The new location, for those of you in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex is the Arlington Convention Center. Sometime tomorrow, the health security express will show up at the Arlington Convention Center and have their rally. Now, you know what to do.... Why don't a bunch of people get together and offer for sale home remedies?... And keep in mind that the real snake oil is on these buses. The health security express, due in to the Arlington Convention Center tomorrow."

Of course, there's nothing wrong with media figures encouraging people to get involved politically--as long as commentators across the political spectrum are allowed to do that. But why does Limbaugh have to lie about it?

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:22 AM

Extra! Update, June 1995

Yet More Limbecile Statements

RANGER RUSH
LIMBAUGH: On his April 5 radio show, Limbaugh announced he was going to "nuke FAIR" with new information he had found about forests: "This, of course, is an area about which I've come under severe and fallacious attack by this media watchdog bunch of homies called Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting," Limbaugh said.

He proceeded to quote from a Robert Samuelson op-ed column in the Washington Post (4/5/95) that reviewed a book by Newsweek reporter Gregg Easterbrook: "'In the mid-19th Century, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut were about 35 percent wooded; now they are 59 percent wooded.' More forest land today than 200 years ago," Limbaugh noted.

REALITY: Ranger Rush strikes again. The original claim that FAIR had challenged was that "we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than we did at the time the Constitution was written" (radio, 2/18/94); in his second book, he had written that there is more forest land in the U.S. today than there was when Columbus first reached the New World. The real figures, according to U.S. Forest Service estimates: in 1492, approximately 1 billion acres of forest; in 1787, about 930 million; 1992, 737 million.

In the past, Limbaugh has tried to prove he was right by showing that there is more forest land now than in 1952 (radio, 7/5/94) or 1920 ("Limbaugh Responds to FAIR," press release)--neither of which has anything to do with the Constitution or Columbus. Now in his third failed defense, he cites a statistic that is off by more than half a century and ignores 47 of 50 states.

BEHIND THE TIMES
LIMBAUGH: On the Republicans' "Contract With America": "The New York Times never ran anything on the contract 'til after the election. The rest of the news media hardly talked about it at all." (TV, 4/6/95)

REALITY: In the 42 days between the announcement of the "Contract with America" and the Nov. 8, 1994 election, the New York Times published 45 articles that mentioned the contract--more than one a day. The Nexis computer database reports that more than 1400 pieces mentioning the contract were published before the election.

FOOL ME TWICE
LIMBAUGH: Limbaugh on his April 27 radio show recited alleged quotes from Pacifica radio host Julianne Malveaux and CBS reporter Eric Engberg as examples of "liberal hate speech." According to Limbaugh, Malveaux had said: "I think Nicole deserved to die. But the most reprehensible person in this O.J. trial circus is Judge Ito.... I wish he would get a parasite from eating bad sushi and die. I mean it. His face should be on a wanted poster and distributed to all black gang members in L.A. who still haven't forgiven the Asian store owners for resisting the Rodney King rebellion."

And Engberg, Limbaugh said, had reported that Newt Gingrich "has come forward with a welfare reform plan straight out of Oliver Twist and an attitude that child advocates say reminds them of Ebenezer Scrooge."

REALITY: Both quotes come from the April Fools' edition of Notable Quotables, a newsletter that lists quotes from media that the right-wing Media Research Center, headed by Brent Bozell, finds too liberal. Every year, the group puts out a list of made-up quotes, each dated April 1, with "April Fools" printed at the bottom of the two-page publication. And for the second year in a row, Limbaugh has fallen for the hoax, responding with outrage to the fake quotes. (See EXTRA!, 7-8/94.)

Limbaugh admitted he had been hoaxed on his April 28 show, but refused to apologize to the smeared journalists (Washington Post, 4/29/95): "Given some of the things liberals actually do say, it's not too tough to believe they would say the things Bozell makes up."

FROM THE LEFT--I'M RUSH LIMBAUGH
LIMBAUGH: Rush Limbaugh was invited to be a panelist on This Week With David Brinkley on April 16--filling in for Sam Donaldson. While Donaldson is in no sense a left-winger, he sometimes argues with George Will. In Donaldson's absence, Brinkley, Will, Cokie Roberts and Limbaugh basically agreed about almost everything: tax cuts, the Voting Rights Act, Clinton's comments on Vietnam. But some debate was provided--Limbaugh vs. Limbaugh--as the "truth detector" tripped over himself to agree with Will. Here's Limbaugh on the question of whether Gen. Colin Powell was in or out of the presidential race:

"Well, I think Powell's definitely in. I don't think there's any real question about it. I think he's playing it very--very coyly, in fact. He's taking advantage of the third party candidate opportunity."

VS. LIMBAUGH: Here's Limbaugh a few minutes later, after Will said, "I disagree with Rush":

"Now, I'm not suggesting that he will run. I'm saying he's--he's-- the stories last week that he's pulled himself out are not true and that he is keeping himself in a situation where the option remain open, for whatever reason. I don't--I don't see him running, either."

Strong Bad · August 1st, 2003, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SirStefan32
Rush has updated this list, many of the "old" UTOL having become
somewhat dated (but no less true for being in the past tense!) As read
by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show, Friday, February 18, 1994:

(All equally truthful: number 1 is not more or less important than 35.)

1. There is a distinct singular American culture - rugged individualism
and self-reliance - which made America great.
2. The vast majority of the rich in this country did not inherit their
wealth; they earned it. They are the country's achievers, producers,
and job creators.
3. No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.
4. Evidence refutes liberalism.
5. There is no such thing as a New Democrat.
6. The Earth's eco-system is not fragile.
7. Character matters; leadership decends from character.
8. The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you
cut it down.
9. Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the twentieth century.
10. The 1980s was not a decade of greed but a decade of prosperity; it was
the longest period of peacetime growth in American history.
11. Abstinence prevents sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy -every
time it's tried.
12. Condoms only work during the school year.
13. Poverty is not the root ("rut") cause of crime.
14. There's a simple way to solve the crime problem: obey the law; punish
those who do not.
15. If you commit a crime, you are guilty.
16. Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud.
17. The way to improve our schools is not more money, but the
reintroduction of moral and spiritual values, as well as the four
"R's": reading, 'riting, 'rithmatic, and Rush.
18. I am not arrogant.
19. My first 35 Undeniable Truths are still undeniably true.
20. There is a God.
21. There is something wrong when critics say the problem with America is
too much religion.
22. Morality is not defined by individual choice.
23. The only way liberals win national elections is by pretending they're
not liberals.
24. Feminism was established as to allow unattractive women easier access
to the mainstream of society.
25. Follow the money. When somebody says, "It's not the money," it's
always the money.
26. Liberals attempt through judicial activism what they cannot win at the
ballot box.
27. Using federal dollars as a measure, our cities have not been
neglected, but poisoned with welfare dependency funds.
28. Progress is not striving for economic justice or fairness, but
economic growth.
29. Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare.
Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.
30. Compassion is no substitute for justice.
31. The culture war is between the winners and those who think they're
losers who want to become winners. The losers think the only way they
can become winners is by banding together all the losers and then
empowering a leader of the losers to make things right for them.
32. The Los Angeles riots were not caused by the Rodney King verdict. The
Los Angeles riots were caused by rioters.
33. You could afford your house without your government - if it weren't
for your government.
34. Words mean things.
35. Too many Americans can't laugh at themselves anymore.

Happy anniversary, Rush!

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by schutd
I love the Jesse Jackson comment, and he waould equate that with rule 35 that none of us are willing to laugh at ourselves. Of course, he's not black. If he started in on the red neck trailer trash that this country also has a large population of, he would alienate the majority of his audience I suppose...

Stefan should realize, that with intelligent people, mentioning Rush will automatically make people question his intelligence.

Rush lies constantly, he is a sensationalist whos accuracy is on par with The National Enquirer

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:25 AM

Limbaugh Out to Lunch in Budget Debate
By Jim Naureckas & Steve Rendall

"Today, my friends, we're going to do everything the media accuses us of doing, that we never have done, but we're going to do it," Rush Limbaugh announced on his March 10 radio show. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today we're going to give you marching orders, and today we will ask you to follow us in lock-step."

Actually, Limbaugh urges his followers to take political action with some regularity (Extra!, 9-10/94). But what issue was so important that it would make Limbaugh claim that he was breaking his rule? The school lunch program.

"My friends," Limbaugh declared, "for the last three weeks we have been barraged with the most heart-rending stories of cruel Republicans taking food from the mouths of children, with drastic decreases in school food lunch budgets. Throughout the past two weeks I have gone to the greatest of lengths to explain, to show with actual figures, that the Republicans plan to increase the spending in this program by 4.5 percent."

"What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is not politics as usual, not liberal journalism as usual," Limbaugh warned. "What we have is a total rejection of responsibility, a total brainwashing equaled only by the worst days of Stalin, of Pravda, of Tass. This is nothing more than a provable conspiracy between the left and the press to spread disinformation about a Republican plan."

Limbaugh urged his listeners to get on the phone to the media. "Just call your newspapers, call your local TV station, call the news magazines. Call ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Time, U.S. News, and all you say to them is 'Stop lying about the school lunch program, thank you,' and hang up."

The dittoheads, given their marching orders, marched. CNN reported getting 300 calls, the San Jose Mercury News counted more than 100, USA Today said it received "hundreds," all with the same message: "Stop lying about the school lunch program."

The school lunch incident is classic Limbaugh: outraged, self-righteous, hyperbolic--and wrong.

The Republican plan in question is the child nutrition block grant legislation approved by the House Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee. The legislation combines five separate nutrition programs--including the school lunch program--into one grant going to states. The dollar amount of the 1996 grant will be 2.5 percent more than the five programs cost in fiscal year 1995; since inflation is expected to run at 3.5 percent, this is a cut in the real purchasing power of the child nutrition programs--even without expected increases in school enrollments.

So where does Limbaugh's 4.5 percent hike come from? The Republicans at the Economic and Educational Committee calculated that if states transfered money from the other four child nutrition programs, then they would be able to raise the school lunch program by that much. Three programs--the child care food program, the summer food program and the school milk program--would each have to be slashed by 34 percent, a draconian cut that few states are likely to impose. A fourth program that would have to be reduced provides bulk food for school lunches, so a cut in this program would mean that children have less food to eat. (See "Clarifying the School Lunch Numbers," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/16/95.)

Nothing in the legislation mandates or even suggests that states should divide the block grant along these peculiar lines. The 4.5 percent increase is just a Republican fiction, apparently designed for just the purpose Limbaugh put it to: bashing Democrats and media for (accurately) reporting that Republicans were taking money away from school lunches.

Limbaugh was not the only one who made use of the Republican's school lunch canard. "No one is talking about cutting the money for school lunches," George Will insisted on This Week With David Brinkley (2/26/95). "The Republican plan increases the money for school lunches. It would increase 4.5 percent a year as opposed to 5.2 percent a year under the Democrats."

Mona Charen (Capital Gang, 3/20/95) rebuked Clinton for charging the Republicans with cutting school lunches, when they actually "plan to increase funding by 4.5 percent.... As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to his opinion, but not to his own facts."

"Nobody seemed to care about the truth," editorialized the Indianapolis Star, owned by Dan Quayle's family (3/9/95). "The grants actually would increase spending by 4.5 percent yearly."

Newt Gingrich himself, interviewed by Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News (3/30/95), angrily denounced the "systematic disinformation campaign" on school lunches. "The fact is we raised school lunches 4.5 percent for five years," the House speaker claimed. CBS's anchor did not correct him.

Only a few reporters bothered to correct what was indeed a systematic disinformation campaign by the Republicans and their allies in the media. Cox News Service's Andrew Mollison worked through the numbers in a March 14 dispatch, concluding that the 4.5 percent increase was "mythical." According to Mollison's report, John Czwartacki, a spokesperson for the House Republican Conference which distributed the 4.5 percent figure to the news media, conceded that the figure was wrong. Jill Lawrence also set the record straight in a March 16 AP news analysis.

But most news outlets ignored or abetted the Republican disinformation campaign. Were they cowed by Limbaugh's allies and followers...or just too lazy to look up the real numbers?

Divide Et Impera · August 1st, 2003, 09:26 AM

Wow. Until I read that first post by SS32, I never truly realized how pompous, self-serving, self-righteous, short-sighted, wrong, and idiotic Rush was. And after reading that article posted by Krang, I think it would be wise that Rush NOT be allowed to be in teh booth for MNF. You should really be careful whom you idolize, SS32....

The ecosystem is not fragile? People believe this crap?

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:29 AM

Rush is a liar.

Anyone who listens, is listening to lies and blatant misinformation.

The real information is out there, but his listeners choose to be ignorant of the truth.

SirStefan32 · August 1st, 2003, 09:33 AM

Hey, it's OK to hate a guy who is smarter than any of you and is your political opponent. Rush is a great conservative mind. Since nobody can beat him in any kind of debate, they falsely accuse him of being a bigott, a racist, etc.

Oh, wait a minute Krang, wasn't it you who said that "Just because I disagree with you doesn't make a bigott?" (or something like that?

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SirStefan32
Hey, it's OK to hate a guy who is smarter than any of you and is your political opponent. Rush is a great conservative mind. Since nobody can beat him in any kind of debate, they falsely accuse him of being a bigott, a racist, etc.

Oh, wait a minute Krang, wasn't it you who said that "Just because I disagree with you doesn't make a bigott?" (or something like that?

Did you read his racist comments above? That makes him a bigot.

(BTW it is bigot, not bigott).

No one can beat him in a debate, because he doesn't allow a debate to happen.

SirStefan32 · August 1st, 2003, 09:43 AM

I don't see any legitimate racism there Krang. It is all pure crap created by the liberals.

Krangthebrain · August 1st, 2003, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SirStefan32
I don't see any legitimate racism there Krang. It is all pure crap created by the liberals.

HAHAHAHA! Very weak response to well documented lies and bigoted comments.

These are real incidents, but as I said, you are blind to the truth and you would rather be spoon fed lies than to investigate the truth.

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