RUSH: Let’s start with what happened down in Broward County yesterday with those commissioners. Here’s the situation. I don’t know how you’re going to miss this because it’s been all over the cable news, it’s been all over newspapers. In fact, get this headline. I wanted to print this out and read this headline to you. This is from last night. ‘Hurricane Information May Not Reach Wide Audience Because of Rush.’ The wire service runs that story. Hurricane information may not reach wide audience because of Rush. I’m only on the highest rated station down there. This is absurd. Anyway, the Broward County commissioners — some of them were out of town — but the ones that were in town earlier this week said, ‘You know what? We want to cancel this deal that we’ve got with WIOD, AM 610,’ which is, of course, our blowtorch affiliate down there in Miami. Broward County is worried that hurricane information news focuses on Dade County in Miami and not enough on Broward, and so they made a deal with WIOD because of its reach and its coverage. Any time the Broward County commission decides to have a press conference on the emergency status of hurricanes, any kind of weather calamity, their press conferences would run in totality, from front to back, from beginning to end.
All of a sudden one of these commissioners, actually a babe, when I saw her picture today — liberal babes are rare, and that’s why they stand out. This woman, at least the head shot, don’t know about the rest, but she’s a babe. Stacy Ritter is her name. And she — (interruption) what? No. No, it’s not. It’s in the Miami Herald. It’s not Photoshopped. Doesn’t look like it’s Photoshopped. At any rate, she said, ‘We want to cancel this contract here because we don’t want to have our hurricane information on the station that Rush Limbaugh is broadcast on, and Sean Hannity.’ It’s absurd on its face. It’s funny in a sense, but there are some real First Amendment concerns here, freedom of speech concerns. It’s typical of liberals who want to shut certain people up. They talk about the Fairness Doctrine and so forth. Anyway, we talked about this yesterday, and they were deluged, and they caved in a couple hours. Some of the commissioners who were out of town found out what had happened — they’re all Democrats. It’s a nine-member commission, and it’s all Democrats. Some of them were out of town, they found out what was going on and they said, ‘We gotta stop this. Look, if your roof’s getting blown off, does it matter if the radio station telling you about it carries conservative programming?’
When you see this headline: ‘Hurricane Information May Not Reach Wide Audience Because of Rush,’ what this means is that liberals in the face of utter disaster will not tune to the station to get information because my show’s on it. So who’s stupid here? This is politicizing a nonpartisan issue. Hurricane emergency information is nonpartisan. Remember Hurricane Katrina. It was the libs who were blaming Bush and FEMA and everybody not getting information out and not getting relief efforts in there soon enough, and they tried to politicize that. Now they’re doing the same thing with this. Now, the Miami Herald story today, it’s got an equally screwy headline, but it’s still funny: ‘Limbaugh Snub Enrages Fans but is Likely to Fail.’ Limbaugh snub enrages fans but is likely to fail. ‘And’ is likely to fail, not but. Enrages fans, but is likely to fail. ‘On the air Wednesday, Limbaugh joked that under the deal, the county would have the power to preempt his midday broadcast.’ They quoted me accurately here. I said, ‘All these idiots on the Broward County Commission have to do is schedule their press conferences from noon to 3,’ and by the terms of the deal, if they want to do a three-hour press conference, they can preempt my show that day. In fact, they could do it today. They could schedule a press conference, not emergency information, but preparedness and things you could do. These people are just blooming idiots.
There’s a great line by the writer of this story, Amy Sherman at the end of the story. ‘For listeners who really can’t stomach a right-wing hurricane report…’ what is right-wing about a hurricane report? (Laughing.) Who does this make look like idiots? Liberals will not tune to this station. Everybody knows that IOD is the station you tune to in such an emergency. ‘I’m not going to listen. I’m not going to listen to a hurricane report.’ I’ll tell you, these people, I don’t know what we’d do without them. I don’t think they have any idea how silly they look. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, there will be a press conference or a little statement that will go out, a sunshine emergency declared in Broward County, press conference at noon, drought emergency press conference at one. (Laughing.) How to protect your skin. At any rate, I think what happened here is they got complaints from all over the country, even locally. Some of the comments on the comments sections of the websites of the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel were just priceless. Some of these people writing in were even liberals. ‘Your roof is being blown off, does it matter that you’re being told about it on a right-wing radio station?’ and of course the program director, the operations manager down there is a guy named Ken Charles. He said, ‘For listeners who really can’t stomach a right-wing hurricane report, the county’s information we simulcast on another station.’ A lib station! So we got both sides of the aisle covered here for our emergency news. I’m sorry. I’m a little giddy here and you can probably understand why, having gone to sleep ’til five o’clock.
I just love this. I’m here minding my own business, apparently bothering liberals like nobody ever has. Speaking of liberals and censorship, get this. Free speech not alive and well within the Democrat Party. The Democrat National Committee had to close the comment section on their blog. They had a post regarding Fred Thompson. ‘In an attempt to bash Thompson, the DNC posted The Fred Thompson ‘Dummies Guide to Diplomacy.” Some of the comments came in, and the Democrats are a little afraid of Thompson. They’re worried he’s reawakening the old Reagan Democrats, and there were some Democrats posting that they liked Thompson, and they disagreed with the post. So they pulled the post and they eliminated any comments because they didn’t want any pro-Thompson comments on their website. They put a piece out trying to make fun of him and ridicule him, and some Democrats post, ‘Hey, we like this guy. This guy is intriguing.’ Reagan Democrats is what they’re afraid of. So, naturally, being the Castro-Putin-Chavez kindred spirits they are, they shut down the debate on the DNC website, something just like what the Broward County commission tried to do with emergency hurricane news, right-wing hurricane reports.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Kimberly in Sarasota, Florida. Let’s go to the phones. Let’s start with you. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Yes, Rush. I believe that they don’t want hurricane information on the radio station that you and Hannity are on, out of fear, fear that they might tune in to listen to one of those hurricane updates and actually become a listener and actually get informed.
RUSH: That could be. I think liberals are afraid of people discovering this show. Well, I know that. I know Tom Daschle said it. You may have more of a point here than I originally thought. Remember after the 2002 elections, Democrats were convinced they were going to take back the Congress. ‘Oh!’ and then Tom Daschle called a press conference, said that experts at the Democrat National Committee had studied the audiences of popular radio hosts like me, and they were shocked to find that there were large numbers of Democrats listening.
CALLER: Well, Rush, I was raised in a socialist American school where I never got the true picture. After 9/11, I started listening to you, after I voted for Mr. Gore, and I actually became informed to what I really wanted and actually became educated.
RUSH: Well, that’s great. That’s great to hear.
CALLER: I’m not only one. There’s lots of us out here, so… (giggles)
RUSH: Oh, I know. I know, because the audience is expanding in geometric proportions here.
CALLER: Absolutely. That’s what happens.
RUSH: We already have all the conservatives. It’s growing. It’s growing among the independents, the moderates, the communists, the socialists, and the liberals — and, I’ll tell you, one other aspect about this business down in Broward County. I think they might be afraid that they might lose some people, but I don’t think that’s the major thing. You’re right about it being fear, but… Actually as I think about this, you’re more and more right. They are afraid of the viewpoints expressed by me being heard. They would prefer nobody be able to say these kinds of things, but the arrogance and conceit that they have in thinking that they have the ability to stop it, to pressure a radio station to get rid of certain people, is indicative of who they are. But these people down there… Look, liberals are all dangerous, but these are the Keystone Cops. These are the small fry. I mean, this is county commission. We’re not talking big timers here. These are wannabes. They think they’re big and important and so forth. They’re still liberals, and all liberals pose a great threat to the future of the country, no question. These are the small fry, and that’s what makes this to me even a little bit more humorous. Kimberly, thanks.
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RUSH: Kathy in Moraga, California. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the program.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: I think the Broward County people want to make the hurricane reports into global warming propaganda and they want to freak everybody out, saying ‘this is a sign of global warming, that is a sign of global warming,’ and the Rush Limbaugh show is a counterbalance to that, and they don’t want a counterbalance.
RUSH: Well, I don’t believe that, because if they wanted to use the press conferences to announce a political agenda, or further one with global warming, it is precisely my audience they’d want to reach. They already got the libs on this. This is a serious thing. We’re laughing about it. All this is, the radio station made a deal with the county commissioners that when a hurricane is approaching, if they want to call a press conference to announce preparedness measures, and after the hurricane hits if they want to address Broward County residents over recovery efforts, what to do in case of the degree of disaster, then they get blanket time, whatever the length of their press conference or their announcement is, they get it on the greatest signal in south Florida. This is the perfect station for this to be on. And they were saying, ‘Well, you know what, not enough people will hear it because Limbaugh’s on that station.’ So they think nobody listens. So they were actually going to deny residents of south Florida preparedness and emergency information on the basis that hurricane news is apparently right-wing and partisan, even though they’re the ones that are going to be doing it.
Anyway, the effort was beaten back. They got complaints. They were assaulted in droves with phone calls and e-mails yesterday. They’re going to take the vote next week. They did this deal a year ago, and they didn’t complain about it a year ago. There’s something that’s happened in the past year and it’s happening throughout the Democrat Party, and that is silence the opposition, get rid of it. ‘We don’t want to have to deal with it because we can’t deal with it. We’ve tried to defeat it in the free market and we can’t, and so we’ve gotta find a way to somehow silence it, discredit it,’ or whatever. I’m sure what they were hoping for was a massive public reaction in just the opposite fashion. They were hoping that a bunch of south Floridians, particularly Broward Countians, would rise up in anger over the fact that my presence on the radio station was going to prevent them from finding out needed information during a hurricane emergency, and they were hoping that the south Florida population would rise up and say, ‘Get Limbaugh off that station! I need that information, but I’m not going to listen to that station to get it because Limbaugh is on it.’ That’s how they think.
So they actually believe liberals will subject themselves to disasters, and they will shield themselves from emergency and preparedness information on the basis of partisan politics. They got the exact opposite reaction. The reaction they got was, ‘You people are being silly. Don’t you understand this is a First Amendment issue? Don’t you understand that hurricane information is nonpartisan? There’s no such thing as a right-wing hurricane report.’ In fact, if there’s been any irresponsibility in hurricane reporting, it is the Drive-By Media in the case of Hurricane Katrina. If there’s anybody that places people at risk by not telling the truth and by creating panic and fear and lying about various aspects about what went on in the Superdome and the convention center, it’s the Drive-By Media. Liberals are the ones who politicize everything. Now they’re trying to say that their information press conferences would just not work on a station that’s so partisan.
This is their mind-set, folks. They aren’t partisan. In their minds they’re just what is. They’re as natural as the air. They’re not partisan. They have free rein to say, do, and be whatever. And, by the way, here’s something very key: In their minds, we are a feared and large enemy. They feel personally, professionally threatened by the existence of us, as their enemy. So there are no ground rules in trying to take out an enemy in that situation, no political correctness there. That gives them their moral cover. They don’t consider themselves partisans at all. They don’t even think they’re mad. They don’t even think they’re enraged. They think they’re as natural as anything is in the world today. It’s only us that are partisan, hate-filled, mean-spirited, nativist, bigot restrictionists.
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RUSH: Lynette from Broward County, Florida on with us. Nice to have you, Lynette, thank you.
CALLER: Thank you. This is an honor. You’re my hero.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: I live in Broward County.
RUSH: Yes?
CALLER: And I don’t believe global warming is caused by humans. I support President Bush. I support the war in Iraq. And I’m a registered Democrat.
RUSH: And you’re a woman, so that makes perfect sense.
CALLER: Yes. Yes. Yes. (Laughing.) And I’m rip roaring mad at the far-left liberals for what they say and what they do. They’ve got the congressional majority, but that doesn’t mean that they speak for all the Americans. And what really gets me mad is, before they won back the House, their claim to fame was that they were going to take back the country. Well, who are they taking it back from?
RUSH: Conservative Republican invaders.
CALLER: They’re Americans, too.
RUSH: No, they are, but I mean they personalize everything. When they lost the House in 1994, they felt the country had been taken from them. You run the House of Representatives, you run the money, that means you run the country. All spending bills originate there. That’s the power. That’s what Washington exists to do. Government exists to perpetuate itself and spend money. And the fact that they lost it after holding it for 40 years, that’s what they mean by ‘we’re going to take back the country.’ Democrats running Washington is the natural order of things. Anything else is a hiccup or an aberration.
CALLER: Well, they’re the aberration, if you ask me, and I’m sorry, but the things that the liberal Democrats say against President Bush, they ought to be hung by the toenails and boiled in oil.
RUSH: Why — why —
CALLER: And Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, oh, my gosh, don’t even get me started on them.
RUSH: Well, I actually kind of like to hear that —
CALLER: They’re blithering idiots.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: The stuff that comes out of their mouth, they’re like children. You know, they sit there and they say —
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: — to President Bush, ‘if you do this, then okay,’ but then President Bush does it, and they go, ‘yeah, but you didn’t do it the way we wanted to.’
RUSH: Spoiled brats. Spoiled brat children.
CALLER: — but for, but for, but for.
RUSH: Why are you still a Democrat?
CALLER: Because I think I can do more damage to them and perhaps I can even possibly, possibly get them to listen to me being a registered Democrat because if I’m a registered Republican, forget it, they won’t hear a word you have to say. But being as I’m a voter and a registered Democrat they may at least read what I write to them.
RUSH: Interesting point. Interesting point. Well, look, Lynette, thanks for calling. I appreciate the nice things that you said.
CALLER: Well, thank you for informing the public on the right way to think. Because some people just don’t even think. They just listen to the news and accept it as the gospel truth. And it’s not.
RUSH: I know. There’s a surprising number of people in this country, and they’re somewhat aged now, seasoned. But their total exposure to the events of the news, the events of the day is 22 minutes of the evening newscast, the dumbed down, tarted up CBS News and things like that.