Saturday, October 17, 2009

What Is Happening to Rush Limbaugh Matters

This was written before Rush was given his marching orders but is still to the point

It appears that the purveyors of political correctness and the ignorant or hate-filled on the far-left are about to exact their revenge against Rush Limbaugh. With the majority of the liberal mainstream media in their enraged and partisan corner, they are about to browbeat, threaten and even blackmail the required number of cowardly NFL owners needed to reject Limbaugh’s bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

Congratulations to all involved in this witch hunt. With this one act of purely partisan-driven retribution, they have highlighted exactly why so many Americans fear freedom of speech and individual liberties may soon be a thing of the past. Liberal groupthink is on the way and let the character assassination aimed at Limbaugh serve as a warning to all those who dare to question the nanny state. From the Ivory Tower of the liberal intelligentsia, we can almost hear the screams of “Just as we know the Sun revolves around the earth, we know that same earth has warmed over the last decade. Agree with us, heretic, or be prepared to be burned at the stake.”

What was Limbaugh’s crime? He had many, apparently, the most unforgivable of which being the fact that for the last two decades, he has been the most powerful and most listened-to voice on the right. For that alone, the far left would like to see him deported from the country or deposited in a dark, dank dungeon. Beyond that, the flimsy excuse used by the handmaidens of the left to deny Limbaugh an ownership stake in the St. Louis Rams is the fact that in 2003, he dared to offer his opinion. As we have come to learn, as far as the liberal elite is concerned, freedom of speech exists in this country for them alone. Conservative opinion needs to be denied, devalued, or attacked wherever and whenever it makes itself known in high schools, the college and university level, media, entertainment or even sports.

In 2003, on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown -- a show in which Limbaugh was being paid and encouraged to offer sometimes controversial opinions -- he had the temerity to offer one -- and state that he believed that for politically correct reasons, some in the sports media were reluctant to criticize Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles because he was an African-American. Agree with Limbaugh or not, that was his opinion. It was his right to offer it.

I happen to believe that McNabb is an incredibly tough, gifted and battle-tested quarterback. That said, I also happen to believe that Limbaugh was right to point out that for politically correct reasons, some sports reporters -- the vast majority of whom now lean left in their political and social beliefs -- may have wanted McNabb to succeed for reasons beyond the football field.

No matter; only seconds after that remark by Limbaugh in 2003, the liberal media, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the left-leaning ESPN, decided that Limbaugh had to go. Flash ahead to 2009, and we have the far-left Keith Olbermann -- a man who has said enough vile things about conservative Americans to fill a phone book -- doing weekly commentary for NBC’s Sunday Night Football package. No problem there as far as the left is concerned.

Beyond the corporate censorship against Limbaugh that is being orchestrated by a number of interconnected interest groups from the left, there is something just as insidious going on. Something the far-left has bet conservatives are powerless to stop …or replicate. That being the threats against conservative or independent commentators and the intimidation of advertisers who are associated with such programs or outlets.

Three cases in point being Glenn Beck’s program on the FOX News Channel, Lou Dobbs on CNN, and the nearly advertiser-empty pages of The Weekly Standard run by William Kristol. With pitchforks and torches in hand, the far-left has been working overtime to threaten advertisers on the Beck program or with FOX, have gone viral with a petition to have Lou Dobbs fired from CNN, and have made sure that advertising money does not find its way onto the pages of The Weekly Standard.

As this blacklisting, intimidation, and censorship of free speech takes place, the mainstream media remains mostly silent. As an ally of those who would attack Limbaugh, Beck and Dobbs, they see no reason to criticize what they decades before, referred to as “Un-American” activity.

Advertisers can run in any far-left publication or newspaper without fear as they know conservatives not only can’t or won’t employ the tactics of the left, but don’t have the media in their pocket to makes such threats stick. From Limbaugh to The Weekly Standard, those on the left who seek to expunge dialog, transparency, facts, and basic American liberties, feel they are easily winning the battle.

As they seek to crush Limbaugh, Beck and Dobbs, who or what is next?

SOURCE

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Can't they demonize Limbaugh without making stuff up?

On the question of who should own the hapless St. Louis Rams, we can't say we have much of an opinion. It's unfortunate that controversy-shy NFL owners forced Rush Limbaugh to withdraw from an investment consortium bidding for the team, but it's hard to muster much outrage. Blogger Tom Maguire puts it in perspective: "Love him or hate him he has made fabulous living being controversial and (that awful word) divisive. That has opened some doors to him and, unsurprisingly, closed others."

But there is a genuine outrage in the use of phony quotes to accuse Limbaugh of racism. NewsBusters.org notes that CNN and MSNBC have both attributed the following fabricated quote to Limbaugh: "I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

Another NewsBusters item quotes MSNBC's Rachel Maddow citing this phony quote: "You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed." Ray assassinated Martin Luther King.

According to the second NewsBusters item linked above, these quotes appear in "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America," a 2006 book by Jack Huberman. (Disclosure: Huberman also quotes this columnist--accurately, as far as we can tell--in explaining why "The Wall Street Journal editors" are one of the "people who are really screwing America.") A blogger who goes by the handle "Mike Smash!" tracks the James Earl Ray quote further back, to a September 2005 blog posting by one "zedlappy," who seems to have found it on a since-edited Wikipedia page.

So what we have here is simply a slander that has become an urban legend--and one that reporters and commentators don't bother to check because it fits their preconception of Limbaugh....

Those journalists who have attributed fake quotes to Limbaugh have not only done him wrong but have fallen short of the most basic professional standard. They owe Limbaugh an apology, and they owe their audience a correction.

More here

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A Crazy Double Standard

It's difficult for a public figure like Rush Limbaugh successfully to sue for the defamation he suffered at the hands of a media lynch mob and credulous opponents during his membership in the Checketts group.

But the irony is staggering. Last night on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN called in Al Sharpton to denounce Rush Limbaugh. That's right, Al Sharpton -- a true racist who has incited racial violence which later led to rioting; refused to apologize for defaming a police officer whom he falsely accused of raping a young black woman; made a variety of apparently anti-semitic remarks; and even called fellow blacks who disagreed with him "yellow n----rs." Yet Anderson Cooper and his producers feel that Sharpton is qualified to comment on Rush Limbaugh's alleged bigotry. Now that's rich.

Al Sharpton -- qualified to run for President and to be courted by the Democrat elite. Rush Limbaugh -- not qualified even to be part owner of a football team. Amazing how the double standards for liberals and conservatives work, isn't it?

As for all those football players seething with righteous indignation against Rush -- what's their beef with Rush (do they even know)? And if it's because Rush opposes affirmative action, every football player who hates Rush for that stance should be prepared to surrender his NFL jersey right now to a player of a different race, one "underrepresented" on the football field.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

The Attack on Rush Limbaugh - An Anatomy of Fabricated Racism: "Fear is as effective in enslaving us as iron shackles. One more nail was hammered deeply into America's freedom coffin when a group of private sector entrepreneurs were intimidated by race hustlers into ousting talk show host Rush Limbaugh from the consortium formed to buy the St. Louis Rams. Armed with nothing more than demonstrably false charges of racism, fabricated to destroy Limbaugh, several black NFL players claimed publicly that they would never play for a team owned by Limbaugh. Into the cauldron of racial slime jumped the usual race mongering suspects, The Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton - aided by the liberal media, including CNN, MSNBC and their ilk. The phony charge of racism is continuously used as a weapon to silence conservatives who dare stand up for our nation's traditional values and oppose the radical socialist agenda of Democrats and the Obama Administration. Limbaugh deserves our gratitude for showing no fear of the race-baiters, fighting back and helping to preserve the freedoms that have made this country great.

Dollar loses reserve status to yen & euro: "Ben Bernanke's dollar crisis went into a wider mode yesterday as the greenback was shockingly upstaged by the euro and yen, both of which can lay claim to the world title as the currency favored by central banks as their reserve currency. Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago. Currently, dollars account for about 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks -- the lowest on record, said the International Monetary Fund. Bernanke could go down in economic history as the man who killed the greenback on the operating table. After printing up trillions of new dollars and new bonds to stimulate the US economy, the Federal Reserve chief is now boxed into a corner battling two separate monsters that could devour the economy -- ravenous inflation on one hand, and a perilous recession on the other. "He's in a crisis worse than the meltdown ever was," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. "I fear that he could be the Fed chairman who brought down the whole thing"... "The stimulus is what's toxic -- we're poisoning ourselves and the global economy with it."

Update on the MIAC Report: "Remember the MIAC Report from last February? This was the report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) to law enforcement officials across the state warning them to watch out for supporters of limited government. The report, titled "The Modern Militia Movement", caused quite a stir in the media and the blogosphere. Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government, filed a FOIA request to obtain the information that went into creating the report. The results of that FOIA were not surprising. The information did not exist. According to Steven Frisbie, the Custodian of Records at the Missouri Highway Patrol, no background materials that were used while the author drafted the report existed. And even more interesting was the claim that they have no record of who wrote the report. Bizarre. The group tasked with collecting intelligence in Missouri cannot even keep track of its own office. It would appear that the MIAC operation is nothing but an amateur operation complete with mustache/glasses disguise kits. They have no idea what is going on inside of their own office."

Obama's tax deception: "The real key to Obama's victory a year ago -- indeed his "signature" issue -- was his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. No matter how you look at it, though, what a difference a year makes. Not only are middle class American families getting no tax relief, Obama administration officials are refusing to rule out the possibility that taxes on middle class families will actually increase in an effort to help the government pay for all of this new spending. So much for Obama’s plan to “bleed the rich” in order to fund middle class tax relief – now everyone must bleed as the President and his Congressional allies scramble to pay for all that “hope and change” they’ve created. Aside from the obvious demerits of “Robin Hood-style” tax policy (it’s never a good idea to go after the people creating the jobs, is it?), the reality is that Obama’s now-scrapped middle class “tax cut” would have barely made a dent when compared to costly new government mandates being forced upon American families. For example, according to an unreleased report prepared by Obama’s own Treasury Department, the cost of the administration’s “cap and trade” energy tax on the typical American household came out to $1,761 a year. On top of that, we learned this week that the latest multibillion-dollar proposal to “reform” the health care industry would cost the typical American family of four over $4,000 a year by the time the plan is fully implemented.

Big business kills a damaging tax increase on overseas profits: "Raising taxes on the overseas profits of American firms has been a central plank of Barack Obama's agenda since his campaign for President in 2008. The proposal was featured in the President's budget in February and was the focus of a May speech in which he said that corporations were "shirking" their responsibility to support his huge increases in federal spending through higher tax payments. But as this newspaper reported Tuesday, the Administration appears to have shelved the plan to limit business use of the current deferral of taxes on profits earned overseas. This climbdown comes after a full-court press by U.S. multinationals, notably including some of Mr. Obama's Silicon Valley supporters, which argued that raising taxes on U.S. companies abroad would do nothing to create jobs in the U.S. while undermining American competitiveness overseas.

Man gets 50 jobs in 50 states in 50 weeks: "A Californian man went from being bored in a dead end job to getting 50 different jobs in 50 different US states in 50 weeks. Dan Seddiqui, 27, of Los Altos, decided he would prove there were jobs out there and he was going to try as many as possible in just one year. So he left his office job in Skokie, Illinois, to try everything from being a lobster catcher, a jazz conductor, a TV weatherman and even a Las Vegas wedding planner. … In choosing the jobs that he wanted to try in each state, Mr Seddiqui decided that he would try a career that each state was most famous for. So he became a wedding co-ordinator in Vegas, conducting two weddings, and was a musician co-ordinator in jazz-obsessed New Orleans.”

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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