RUSH: The next issue of the Limbaugh Letter, which should be in disbursal form to you very soon, should be on its way to you very soon, the interview is with Kirsten Powers, who is a well-known commentator on Fox News. She traces her political history back to the Clinton campaigns of the 1990s. She is an — I don’t know, avowed lib might not be the correct way to put it, but she’s a liberal. But she’s demonstrated an openness rather than a closed-mindedness about aspects of liberalism.
There are a lot of things about the modern day left that bother her greatly, and most of them have to do with speech and free speech. She’s written a book called The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech. I interviewed her for the newsletter last week, and I asked her what reaction she has gotten from her liberal friends and others on the left. She said, “Well, the book’s not out yet,” and that was true at the time I was talking to her, the book hadn’t been released. The release date was three days ago on May the 11th.
I warned her, I have to be very careful about these things. I don’t want to come off smug. I want to be helpful. I was actually trying to be helpful. I said, “You are going to be targeted like you have never been targeted before.” And she said she knew that. I said, “You’re going to pose a tremendous threat. You’re gonna be become public enemy number one for what is essentially a really small group of people on Twitter who have found a way via algorithms –”
It’s much more involved than that, but people think they know what an algorithm is so I’ll just use the word. They found ways to make themselves appear to be hundreds and thousands of people when they are 10 or sometimes 12 people. And I’m not exaggerating in the attacks on us and our advertisers on Twitter. We know who the people are. We did an extensive research project that took months. We identified them. We know who they are. We know first and last names. We know where they live. We know what they do for a living, in some cases. Some don’t work.
They’re lawyers. Some of theme are retired college professors, and they’re just mean-spirited, angry trolls that sit out there with too much time on their hands, and their avowed purpose is to destroy anybody that they think might be effective in harming the leftist agenda.
Well, that has happened to Kirsten Powers. Now, she’s still a lib, proudly says so, but as I say, she’s not rock-ribbed with this. And many times, in fact, on a Fox show here or there — you know, occasionally, ladies and gentlemen, I find myself involved in a controversial affair. Doesn’t happen a whole lot, but sometimes I do, and on many of those occasions, Kirsten, using her instincts, has refused to join the chorus in whatever the criticism of me is. And she’s been right on those occasions.
I thought writing this book was a gutsy thing for her to do because it’s not like somebody like me writing a book describing how the left tries to silence people. I mean, she goes after ’em, folks. This is not a soft-pedaled little commentary or analysis on theory. She goes after these people with explicit, undeniable examples of how people on the left are literally trying to deny average, ordinary Americans access to the First Amendment.
They are literally trying to destroy people. And as a liberal, it bothers her. She is the old classical liberal, I think is the term. An old classical liberal is not what a liberal is today. Liberal today means extreme, fascist, statist, intolerant, full-fledged, almost Stalinist type person. And it bothers her. She has written about it complete with examples, and because she comes from the left doing this, she has become this immense target of these people. I don’t know that she was prepared for it. She said she was, but I don’t know that anybody is.
People who have not experienced this but yet who comment on it, who witness it, I mean, she’s in the news, she works at Fox, she comments on all these issues. But until it happens to you, it’s like anything else, I mean, you think you understand what people are going through, and you might know enough to say, “I wouldn’t want to go through it myself,” but until you have a bunch of faceless, nameless people that are literally flooding the zone with lies and distortions, ’til that actually happens to you, you don’t know what it’s like. And depending on the person, it can scare them into silence, it can shut them up, or it can rev ’em up and it can steel them, and it can make them angrier.
I just wanted to make you aware of the book and the interview coming up. You might think that you know everything there is to know about how the left is attempting to silence people. You might think you keep up with the news and you understand what’s going on. I think it would be fascinating for you to get her take on it as a member of that club, as somebody who’s as distressed by it as you are.
The First Amendment, there a lot of arguments that we as a culture have over the importance of the amendments. Which is actually the most important? Is it number two and guns? Is it number one, free speech? Is it the religion clause? The assembly clause? What is the most important? And I don’t think you can get more important than amendment number one, so much is in it: assembly, religion, freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the key.
But, see, and it was especially, particularly written about political speech. And the purpose of the First Amendment, no government, no government official, no government agency can deprive anybody, can shut anybody up, and it’s happening. You heard the president at this poverty summit literally blame Fox News. You know, if I ran the NAB — now, Fox is technically not a broadcaster because they’re on cable, but if I ran the NAB, the NAB’s a trade group for broadcast operators. If I’m running the National Association of Broadcasters and I see the president of the United States going after my business on the basis that one of our members needs to be silenced because that entity is creating poverty?
But there’s no push-back. There is no push-back. And Fox just sits there. Of course they do what they do every day, and they keep doing it. And they plot ways of reacting and responding, and they do. But it’s deadly serious stuff. And of course to me, it is, because I’m in the speech business, the free speech business. But I think as important — and it’s tough. It’s a tough one. I’ve always gone back and forth on this, is the right to own property, too.
The right to private property, I think it’s right in there with free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly. Not to say the other amendments are of less importance. It’s hard to quantify them that way. They’re all crucial, and they’re all relevant, and they are all purposeful and unique in defining this country as something separate and distinct from every other country that exists or ever has.
So here comes Kirsten Powers, an appreciated and endowed, accepted ranking member of the left calling them out. And so now they’ve gotta destroy her. She’s no different than if she were me, as far as they are concerned. They used to like her, they used to appreciate her, and some still do, but she’s got to be shut up.
And notice there’s not attempt, they don’t want to engage her, they don’t want debate her about it. They have to discredit her. They have to try to destroy her. They have to shut her up because they are the ones that cannot deal in sunlight. They are the ones who cannot exist in openness. They have to do what they do anonymously. They have to do it in their pajamas or otherwise hidden. They have to do it pretending to be people that they’re not.
They’re gutless, spineless poltroons who happen to have the support of the mainstream media, because they’re all part of the same cabal or group that share large parts an agenda. So I just wanted to bring her book to your attention, and alert you to the upcoming interview we have in the next issue of the Limbaugh Letter, and to recommend the book to you, too. It’s one of these books you’ll read and you’ll get mad.
Some of it you will have heard about on this program. Some of these incidents that she writes about we’ve talked about, but her take on it as a liberal is what you probably… Well, you haven’t heard from many places. You don’t hear liberals doing what she’s doing here. When’s the last liberal you can think of that expressed deep concern over the way conservatives are being treated in the media?
Can you name one? I mean, there might be some. I can’t name one off the top of my head. I mean, maybe now and then when he stumbles into it, Juan Williams, and maybe now and then… I can’t think of anybody else. But she’s done it purposefully. And, you know, you always ask, “What’s in it for her to do this?” I mean, she’s got her gig at Fox. There’s nothing in it.
She’s doing this ’cause she genuinely is concerned about it, ’cause you know what she knows is that if anybody’s speech is subject to being shut up, then everybody’s is at some point. She just doesn’t want to sit on the sidelines and watch some people shut up ’cause she’s fully aware that she could be in the next crosshairs. So she’s written the book. Again, it is The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Freedom of Speech, by Kirsten Powers of Fox News.