I and most constitutional conservatives agree that nobody in America today deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom more than talk radio pioneer Rush Limbaugh.
We know that if America survives as a constitutional republic, with limited government that secures individual rights, during the next difficult years, it will be largely because of Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh began his national talk radio program in 1988, more than 31 years ago. That was when George Bush, Sr. was replacing Ronald Reagan as President and already destroying Reagan’s conservative legacy.
George Bush, Sr. was everything Ronald Reagan was not. Unlike Reagan, George Bush had close family, personal, and business ties to Wall Street Banks, foreign governments and businesses, and bureaucrats that depended on insider deals and treaties.
During this time, daily newspapers and national TV network and radio networks were the only source of national news. Almost all were owned or controlled by the same business interests, and run by graduates of the same journalism schools. They all promoted the same “progressive” big government political agenda which included expansion of international governments and agencies and special treatment for big international corporations.
There was no internet to quickly access alternate reports or sources of information. There was no talk radio for national issues. FM Radio played mostly music and AM Radio, especially during mid-day, was an abandoned, empty wasteland.
Democrats had controlled Congress for forty years, and Republicans were content with being the minority party as long as they got their share of government positions, permits, and contracts.
Republicans, Democrats, and the media were happy that the eight year term of surprise conservative upstart Ronald Reagan had ended. Now they could complete their mission of establishing the New World Order they had been working on since the end of World War II.
However, in just a few years, Rush Limbaugh changed everything. He did it with little but his own talent, work, and energy. At the end of 1988, Rush Limbaugh with help from a handful of investors, moved his local Sacramento, California talk show to New York City. There, his program was syndicated with fifty-six 56 other AM radio stations throughout America.
Limbaugh had little trouble getting AM radio stations to run his program weekdays from noon to three. The smartest experts in the business knew that hardly anybody listened to AM radio during that time slot.
Yet Rush Limbaugh quickly attracted listeners to that mid-day AM radio wasteland. Rush talked about issues and topics that mattered most to Americans. He did it with humor and sarcasm that matched the best late night TV comedy shows. He reported important but politically inconvenient news that never made it to mainstream news outlets. He challenged callers and listeners to apply critical thinking skills rarely taught in today’s schools and colleges.
Rush Limbaugh did this in a two-way talk format. He had live, spontaneous, unscripted conversations with random Americans from around the country three hours each day, five days each week, fifty weeks each year for 31 years.
Benjamin Franklin wrote about the value of such conversations in Philadelphia nearly three hundred years ago. Franklin observed that “By the collision of different sentiments, sparks of truth are struck out, and political light is obtained”.
Franklin often remarked that Americans were an exceptional people because our culture that encouraged these open conversations made him and everyone around him smarter and better informed. Franklin himself admitted:
“Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.”
The Rush Limbaugh Program is now broadcast by roughly 600 radio stations throughout America and is heard by roughly 22 million adults each week.
Rush Limbaugh and his program have had a profound effect on American culture and politics. Rush Limbaugh’s commercial success encouraged and enabled other conservatives to also establish national radio shows. They include Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, and Dana Loesch.
Rush Limbaugh and other talk radio hosts informed and energized conservatives who had been demoralized by the tax hike and other betrayals of George “read my lips” Bush, Sr. in 1990 — and the election of Democrat President Bill Clinton in 1992. This allowed Republicans to regain control of both houses of Congress in 1994 and deliver spending cuts, balanced budgets and other conservative reforms for the next four years.
This came to an end in 1998 when House Republicans, including South Jersey’s Frank LoBiondo broke their “Contract With America” and when Republican George W. Bush was elected President in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative”. George W. Bush, like his father rejected the conservatism of Ronald Reagan. For the next six years, a Republican President with Republican control of Congress expanded Medicare, let spending and borrowing get out of control, and mandated banks to continue reckless lending mandated by Democratic President Clinton that brought financial collapse in 2008. As a result, Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives in 2006. Democrat Barack Obama was elected President in 2008.
When Establishment Republicans worked with Obama and Clinton Democrats on trillion dollar Wall Street bailouts and “stimulous” programs, Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show were the only voices that inspired conservatives to regain control of our country. They again informed and inspired us. A new “Tea Party” movement sprang up overnight in 2009 to oppose the reckless bailouts and President Obama’s proposed federal government takeover of America’s entire health care industry. In 2010, this “Tea Party” movement put Republicans back in control of the House of Representatives. In 2010, it helped Donald Trump win the Republican nomination and then the White House with surprise, upset election victories. Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio talk-show hosts played a big part in this. This explains why many top Democrats are seething with anger at them.
On Monday, February 3, 2020, Rush Limbaugh stunned his radio audience at the end of his regular noon to three program. He announced that he had just been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Rush said he would be missing many shows that week to receive medical treatment. On the following night, Rush surprised his listeners by being in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. for President Trump’s State of the Union speech. During that speech, President Trump praised Rush and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. First Lady Melania Trump draped the medal around Rush’s neck right then and there.
Later that week, both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times published opinion columns attacking both Limbaugh and President Trump. The Press of Atlantic City republished the Los Angeles Times piece last Sunday. Both opinion columns were classic example of leftist propaganda commonly known today as “Fake News”. Click here for the New York Times opinion piece of February 7, 2020.
Click here for the Los Angeles Times piece reprinted in the Press of Atlantic City (and dozens of other local newspaper throughout America) with the below meme on Sunday, February 9, 2020.
Both columns began by falsely stating that the Presidential Medal of Freedom was only given to “world historical figures” like Elie Wiesel. Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa. They failed to mention that Democratic Presidents Clinton and Obama gave that same award to divisive political figures like Robert DeNiro, Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, and Joe Biden.
The LA Times opinion piece falsely stated that Rush listeners call ourselves “dittoheads” because we “mechanically reproduce” what Limbaugh says. The truth is that we coined that term years ago to describe how listeners begin each on-air conversation when calling the program with “Dittos from (Hometown of the Caller)” This shorthand code for “I love your program. You’re doing a great job, etc.” avoids avoid wasting precious air time for polite small talk, and lets callers get right to the point.
However, the most effective and hateful Fake News in both columns were not their lies, but the important truths set forth above that they did not tell.
They also failed to mention Rush Limbaugh’s charities. Over the years, Rush gave $400,000 of his own money and collected $2.5 million for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Last year, Rush responded to the hate campaign against the Betsy Ross American flag by selling Betsy Ross t-shirts. This raised more than $5 million dollars for the “Tunnels to Towers Foundation” that gives mortgage free homes to the surviving families of soldiers, sailors and police and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
The New York Times took eight quotes completely out of context from 31 years of live, spontaneous broadcasts, 3 hours each day, 5 days each week, and 50 weeks each year. It than falsely said that these quotes fairly represent Rush Limbaugh and his program. This is exactly what the #FakeNews media did to President Trump, Kate Smith, Betsy Ross, and me during the past four years. The best way to help “progressive” friends and family know the truth about Rush Limbaugh is to persuade them to listen to a few hours of the Rush Limbaugh program themselves.
Instead, they did to Rush Limbaugh what the media did to iconic “God Bless America” singer Kate Smith last year. Last year, the national media falsely portrayed that beloved civil rights champion as a racist by quoting the lyrics of two songs sung by her in the 1930’s completely out of context.
Both columns referred to a handful of isolated, and often sarcastic and ironic quotes by Rush Limbaugh taken from his 31 years of 3 hour per day, 5 day per week broadcasts, completely out of context.
Fortunately, it should be much easier to defend Rush Limbaugh’s reputation from “progressive” Democrat slander than that of Betsy Ross or Kate Smith.
Although Rush Limbaugh is battling cancer, we expect him to continue broadcasting for some time to come. Please invite your “woke” friends to listen to several hours of Rush while they can and reach their own conclusions about this great man.
Seth Grossman, Executive Director
LibertyAndProsperity.com
453 Shore Road
Somers Point, NJ 08244
info@libertyandprosperity.com
Tel. (609) 432-3026.
