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Stories tagged with “Rush Limbaugh”

NEWS FLASH

Video: Fox News And Limbaugh Can’t Keep Their Keystone XL Jobs Lies Straight | Every day, it seemed like the right-wing media came up with a new number for how many jobs the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline could create, the main argument used for forcing the heartland to bear the risk of pumping toxic foreign oil to Texas refineries for foreign export. A new video from Media Matters shows that wasn’t just an impression — they found Fox News, the Fox Business Network, and Rush Limbaugh claimed the pipeline would generate anywhere from 2,200 to 1 million(!) jobs, even though a TransCanada official put the estimate in the hundreds.

Media

Limbaugh On Gingrich Cheating On His Ex-Wife: ‘Newt’s A Victim’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jan 19, 2012 at 2:18 pm

ABC News is planning to air a explosive interview tonight with Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife — her first since 1999 — in which she reveals that the former Speaker asked her for an open marriage so he continue to see his current wife, Callista. Not surprisingly, some conservatives and Gingrich himself have attacked ABC for airing the “tawdry and inappropriate” interview, but shock jock Rush Limbaugh took things to another level on his show today by outright defending Gingrich on the matter.

Limabugh, who could fairly be described as a proud chauvinist, said, “I don’t understand why the media’s pretending to be so upset” about Gingrich’s behavior with his ex, Marianne. Limbaugh went on to read a “great note” from a “good friend of mine,” which posits that Newt and not Marianne — whom Gingirch left shortly after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — is the real “victim” here. Moreover, the fact that Gingrich asked for “permission” to cheat on his wife is “a mark of character, in my book,” Limbaugh continued:

LIMBAUGH: I got a great note from a friend of mine. “So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That’s a mark of character, in my book. Newt’s a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation.” [...] That’s from a good friend of mine, “Newt’s slogan ought to, ‘Hell, yes, I wanted it.’” (laughing) I’m sharing with you how some people are reacting to this.

It’s worth noting that Gingrich had been having an affair for several years before he asked “permission” to cheat on his wife.

Rush Limbaugh married his fourth wife in 2010.

Climate Progress

Rush Limbaugh Serving as De Facto Editor of Gingrich Eco-Book

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jan 5, 2012 at 10:30 am

by Jocelyn Fong, cross-posted from Media Matters

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has canceled the climate change chapter in his upcoming book of environmental essays after Rush Limbaugh and other commentators targeted its author, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe.

At a recent campaign event, Gingrich told a woman he had cut the climate change section after she expressed concerns about it, citing what she heard from “Rush.” “That’s not going to be in the book. We didn’t know that they were doing that and we told them to kill it,” Gingrich says in the video provided by National Journal. The woman replies, “That sounds like a good idea because I thought, why would you want to have somebody like that in there.”

By “somebody like that,” she was referring to a scientist who, like the vast majority of climatologists, will tell you that human activities are driving climate change. Gingrich’s comments came as a surprise to Hayhoe, who said on Twitter that she spent “100+ unpaid hrs” on the project. According to emails reported by the Los Angeles Times, Hayhoe was asked in 2007 to write “a good opening chapter that lays out the facts on global climate change,” including “a sense of what needs to happen.” She said via email that her chapter did not include specific policy prescriptions. Gingrich’s collaborator Terry Maple told the Times that the book will probably be released in 2013.

Hayhoe, an Evangelical Christian who often speaks about climate change to faith-based communities, has noted in the past that “there is a very intelligent, well-planned effort to deliberately try to muddy the waters on this issue.” This month, she became the target of that very cohort of activists and commentators.

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Green

Newt Gingrich Kills Climate Science Chapter To Appease Limbaugh Listeners

By Brad Johnson on Dec 31, 2011 at 9:00 am

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe

With the Iowa caucus looming, Newt Gingrich told a Rush Limbaugh listener he has killed a chapter by a conservative climate scientist that recognizes the reality of global warming. The book, being edited by Gingrich’s Contract with the Earth co-author Terry Maple, was to have an essay by climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She was asked in 2007 by Maple to provide “a good opening chapter that lays out the facts on global climate change,” and submitted her chapter in 2009. After the Los Angeles Times broke the story that Gingrich had a climate science book on tap, Limbaugh skewered Gingrich and the “babe named Hayhoe.”

Confronted by a Limbaugh listener, Gingrich blamed an anonymous third party for requesting the chapter, and said “we told them to kill it,” CBS News reports:

The climate-change issue arose Thursday night at a Gingrich campaign stop in Carroll, when a woman expressed concern to Gingrich about the chapter. She said she had heard about it on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. As she began to tell Gingrich who the author of the piece would be, Gingrich interrupted. “That’s not going to be in the book,” he told her. “We didn’t know that they were doing that and we told them to kill it.”

Watch it:

“Good,” the climate denier responded. “That sounds a good idea because why would you want to have somebody like that in there?”

Gingrich and his co-author Terry Maple never told Hayhoe — a professor at Texas Tech University, mother, and evangelical Christian — that her chapter would be junked. Hayhoe was dismayed by the “ungracious” way she found out that her work was being discarded.

“Nice to hear that Gingrich is tossing my #climate chapter in the trash,” Hayhoe tweeted in response to the news. “100+ unpaid hours I could’ve spent playing w my baby.”

Climate Progress

Rush Limbaugh: Climate Change Misinformer of the Year

By Climate Guest Blogger on Dec 29, 2011 at 8:00 am

by  Jocelyn Fong and Shauna Theel, in a Media Matters cross-post

In 1994 Rush Limbaugh declared, “There is no global warming going on,” adding that scientists “admit” they “may need 20 years more data to prove it.” Since then, Limbaugh has managed to shield his brain from 18 years of mounting evidence that humans are changing the climate. “Science has made enormous inroads in understanding climate change and its causes,” according to the National Research Council’s latest report assessing the state of climate science. “There is a strong, credible body of evidence, based on multiple lines of research, documenting that climate is changing and that these changes are in large part caused by human activities,” the report said.

Limbaugh, whose radio show reportedly reaches roughly 14 million people per week, remains the most prominent and cocksure denier of human-induced climate change in the news industry. His unyielding belief that the world’s earth scientists are perpetrating a “hoax” has led him to some interesting places this year, from declaring that the heat index is “manufactured by the government,” to accusing NASA of sabotaging its own research satellite, to announcing that the National Academy of Sciences has “lost all credibility.” Given his large following, Limbaugh’s extreme and misguided position may well have influenced the Republican presidential primary by discouraging candidates from speaking about the threats posed by global warming. Indeed, Limbaugh made this litmus test explicit, saying “bye, bye, nomination” after Mitt Romney acknowledged the human contribution to climate change. For all this, on top of his typically bombastic distortions and obfuscations of climate science, Limbaugh wins the distinction of 2011 Climate Change Misinformer of the Year.

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NEWS FLASH

Bashing School Meal Programs, Limbaugh Calls Poor Children ‘Wanton Waifs And Serfs Dependent On The State’ | Crooks & Liars catches conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh being even more insulting to poor children than usual. Limbaugh, who once gladly accepted government welfare himself, went on a rant about school meal programs during the school year that “condition [children] to not feed themselves.” According to Limbaugh, getting used to being fed by schools turns children who would otherwise starve into “wanton waifs and serfs dependent on the state.” “If you feed them, if you feed the children, three square meals a day during the school year, how can you expect them to feed themselves in the summer?” he asked. Listen here, courtesy of Media Matters:

The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year as many parents have lost jobs or homes during the economic crisis. The decades-old social safety net program reflects extensive research that students have a hard time learning when they’re hungry.

LGBT

Rush Limbaugh Blames School’s Tolerance For Murder Of Gay Student

By Igor Volsky on Nov 22, 2011 at 4:35 pm

On Monday, prosecutors announced that they had reached a plea deal with Brandon McInerney, a 17-year-old student who shot and killed Larry King in February of 2008 for acting flamboyantly. Under the terms of the agreement, McInerney will spend 21 years in prison, until he is 38 years old, and avoid a second trial.

But during the Nov. 22 edition of his radio show, Rush Limbaugh suggested that Oxnard middle school — which the two boys attended — was partly responsible for King’s killing because school authorities were interested in promoting a homosexual agenda and had not done enough to dissuade King from dressing in women’s accessories, wearing makeup, and flirting with male students:

Now we’re told in Newsweek that an assistant principal was encouraging this kid to be flamboyant because it furthered an agenda. I wonder what that agenda could have possibly been? Anybody want to take a wild guess? Back in 2008, the parents and brother of Larry King, the kid who was shot, claimed that the school was allowing him to wear makeup and feminine clothing, and that this was a factor leading to his death. [...]

Is it any wonder that parents get a little worried when they send the little tykes off to school, because I’ll tell you, folks, what’s happening, especially in these blue states, what’s happening in these public schools, the last thing going on is what we’ve all thought of as traditional education. There is education taking place, and there are agendas that are being promoted, but they’re not what you and I were taught in school. So now a confused 17-year-old is dead because the school, “Ah, there’s nothing we can do. There’s nothing that we can do about this. So sorry.”

Media

GOP Sen. Inhofe Calls Out Limbaugh On Senate Floor For Backing Brutal African Guerrilla Group

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Oct 18, 2011 at 2:25 pm

In the wake of President Obama’s decision to send a small contingent of troops to help Uganda fight the marauding Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) guerrillas, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh embraced the brutal group as valiant Christian warriors “fighting the Muslims in Sudan.”

In reality, as human rights groups have long documented, the LRA is a murderous “death cult,” best known for descending on villages, “capturing, killing, and abducting hundreds of civilians,” and forcing boys to become child soldiers and girls to become “bush wives.”

Many journalists and human rights advocates — along with an LRA survivor — have responded to Limbaugh, but yesterday he received a rebuke from the Senate floor from someone who called the controversial radio host “my good friend Rush Limbaugh.”

Using Limbaugh’s and his cohorts name, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), said, “some people have mistakenly said that [the LRA's leader] is a Christian, and I want to make sure everyone knows that he was officially disavowed by the Catholic Church in Uganda.” He went on to detail their group’s atrocities.

It’s unusual for any senator to call out an ideological ally by name from the Senate floor, but even more so considering that Inhofe has in the past looked past egregious human rights violations to lend support for Christian leaders. In April, Inhofe defended former Ivory Coast dictator Laurent Gbagbo after other African and international leaders condemned him for taking up arms to retain power after losing the election to a Muslim rival. But the LRA is terrible enough for even Inhofe to reject.

Today, Limabugh responded to Inhofe on his radio show, admitting he was “misinformed” about the LRA. But Limbaugh seemed more bemused about having his name “entered into the Congressional record” than apologetic, giving a hearty laugh about it before quickly moving on to another topic.

Green

Limbaugh Says Global Warming, Occupy Wall Street Part Of ‘Sybil’ Conspiracy: ‘Nothing Is Real’

By Brad Johnson on Oct 17, 2011 at 6:25 pm

In one of his most unhinged rants yet, hate radio show host Rush Limbaugh argued that the revelation that a famous book about multiple-personality disorder is a hoax means that “nothing is real,” including global warming. “Sybil” was an influential 1973 book written for a popular audience that told of a psychiatrist’s client with “multiple personality disorder.” The book influenced the field of psychoanalysis for years. By the 1990s, questions were raised about the veracity of the tale, and a new book by Debbie Nathan, Sybil Exposed, fully debunks the story, after thousands of people were mistreated.

In today’s show, Limbaugh took this news to mean that all institutions are part of a global “liberal” conspiracy, including climate science:

So here we have a real-life recent case of an agenda-driven hoax becoming scientific consensus and a popularly accepted concept that real decisions were based on. Sound familiar? Sound familiar, folks? Does it not sound exactly like what’s happened with global warming?

“The United States Congress, the White House, you name it, wherever they have dominated for a significant amount of time, you have perverse corruption, lies, outright fraud and hoaxes all for the express purpose of controlling people, all because they want to control everybody,” Limbaugh concluded. “Now, who do you think is in charge of this stupid Occupy Wall Street thing? The same bunch of fraudsters, the same bunch of liars, the same bunch of hoaxers. Nothing is real.”

Limbaugh is engaging in a fallacy common among climate deniers, the belief that climate science totters like an upside-down pyramid on a few key observations or influential scientists. In reality, the science of manmade global warming is a robust accumulation of knowledge from diverse fields, from molecular chemistry to ecological biology, from satellite-based atmospheric physics to paleoclimatology.

Limbaugh wants his listeners to believe that the 99 percent movement — which has now gone global — is part of a conspiracy of “perverse corruption” and “outright fraud.” Limbaugh has claimed, without evidence, that “Obama’s responsible” for the movement, fed by “George Soros money” and “organized and paid for by a bunch of anti-Semites.” It’s not clear what the connection is between this supposed conspiracy, climate scientists, and a psychiatrist who’s been dead for nearly twenty years.

NEWS FLASH

Herman Cain: Chris Christie Is Too Liberal To Be President | This morning, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Herman Cain whether New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is too liberal to be president, citing his positions on common-sense gun laws, civil unions, immigration reform, and global warming. “Yes,” Cain responded, “I believe that a lot of conservatives, once they know his position on those things you delineated, they will not be able to support him. So I think that is absolutely a liability for him.” Watch it:

Christie’s on-again/off-again interest in running appears to be spiking again. He is now “seriously considering getting in,” and his political advisers are preparing plans. His speculative interest is already garnering negative reviews from hate radio host Rush Limbaugh, who said he sees “a lot of John McCain” in him.

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