Rush Limbaugh’s dangerous suggestion that Hurricane Irma is fake news

[bsnub]

Rush Limbaugh didn't say the magic words, but on Tuesday he basically accused the media of creating fake news about Hurricane Irma, which is threatening Florida after hitting Barbuda and Antigua. The storm's 185-mile-per-hour winds tied the record high for any Atlantic hurricane making landfall.

These storms, once they actually hit, are never as strong as they're reported,” Limbaugh claimed on his syndicated radio show. He added that “the graphics have been created to make it look like the ocean's having an exorcism, just getting rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff.”

Why would the media exaggerate the threat of a hurricane? Here's Limbaugh's theory:

There is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage people’s homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens?

Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media.

The local media, in turn, reports in such a way as to create the panic way far out, which sends people into these stores to fill up with water and to fill up with batteries, and it becomes a never-ending repeated cycle. And the two coexist. So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because they’re getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers.

To state the obvious, these are potentially dangerous comments from Limbaugh, who is based in Palm Beach, Fla. He is encouraging listeners who might be in Irma's path not to take seriously the official guidance disseminated through the media.
I wish that not everything that involved news had become corrupted and politicized, but it just has,” he said.

More broadly, Limbaugh's bad advice reveals the metastasizing nature of “fake news” attacks on the press, which have been led by President Trump. How did we get from Trump's claim that he has “never seen more dishonest media than, frankly, the political media” to the idea that weather reports are phony, too?

Alex Jones might have something to do with it. The Infowars founder — who has an “amazing” reputation, according to Trump — has for years promoted the notion that the U.S. government possesses the power to conjure and control weather events. Just last week, as Hurricane Harvey battered Texas, Jones devoted part of his show to questioning why the government didn't “use the technologies to kill [the storm] out in the gulf.”

“It is weird how these storms go,” he said, suggesting Harvey might have been manufactured or manipulated. “They just sit over a city.”

Jones's contention is that the government — or, more precisely, the “deep state,” now that Trump is president — uses its “weather weapon” to stoke fear of climate change and promote a liberal agenda.

Jones might be a fringe figure, but he increasingly bleeds into the mainstream, thanks in part to Trump's validation. Witness Limbaugh's monologue about Irma, which echoed some of Jones's conspiracy theory.

Limbaugh, a fellow Trump booster, didn't say the deep state causes storms, but he did say “you have people in all of these government areas who believe man is causing climate change, and they’re hellbent on proving it, they’re hellbent on demonstrating it, they’re hellbent on persuading people of it.”
Limbaugh didn't say the deep state directs storms toward major cities, but he did say “hurricanes are always forecast to hit major population centers because, after all, major population centers is where the major damage will take place and where we can demonstrate that these things are getting bigger and they’re getting more frequent and they’re getting worse — all because of climate change.”

Thus we have two of the president's biggest promoters in the media telling people that news about a storm — or perhaps even the storm itself — is fake. There could be serious consequences to Trump's ceaseless effort to lower trust in institutions such as the government and the press — consequences that the president and his team might not have fully considered.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-is-fake-news/

[AntRobertson]

Hurricane warnings as a conspiracy between media and retailers!?

I think Rush has been at the prescription meds again.

[bsnub]

^ Don't leave Alex Jones out of it....

Alex Jones might have something to do with it. The Infowars founder — who has an “amazing” reputation, according to Trump — has for years promoted the notion that the U.S. government possesses the power to conjure and control weather events. Just last week, as Hurricane Harvey battered Texas, Jones devoted part of his show to questioning why the government didn't “use the technologies to kill [the storm] out in the gulf.” “It is weird how these storms go,” he said, suggesting Harvey might have been manufactured or manipulated. “They just sit over a city.” Jones's contention is that the government — or, more precisely, the “deep state,” now that Trump is president — uses its “weather weapon” to stoke fear of climate change and promote a liberal agenda. Jones might be a fringe figure, but he increasingly bleeds into the mainstream, thanks in part to Trump's validation. Witness Limbaugh's monologue about Irma, which echoed some of Jones's conspiracy theory.

Let us not forget....

[misskit]

Hope Rush and all his listeners get blown away by Irma. It would raise the average IQ in Florida.

[uncle junior]

i blame the freemansons

[bsnub]

Hope Rush and all his listeners get blown away by Irma.

I doubt he is even there. He normally broadcasts from Palm Beach I would put dimes to dollars that he is not even in that state right now. Most likely groping hotel maids and popping painkillers in another state.

[SKkin]

Was Flush Rimbaugh based in Fla when Andrew hit?

[misskit]

^My husband and I had an appointment with the Monkey Jungle to do some filming before Andrew hit. We went on down a month or so afterwards and the place was still wrecked. All the big apes had been evacuated and the other monkeys were living in the wild around the area.

Dade County was a mess. Concrete buildings had been blown down and people's homes blown right off the foundations.

[baldrick]

Just last week, as Hurricane Harvey battered Texas, Jones devoted part of his show to questioning why the government didn't “use the technologies to kill [the storm] out in the gulf.”

because texas is full of queers and drumpf hates queers ?

[bsnub]

^ Both

[bsnub]

What a bozo you just know this clown is not even in state...

Limbaugh Won’t Stop Digging: Climate Change-Pushing Liberals Find Hurricane Irma ‘Exciting’

https://www.mediaite.com/online/limb...irma-exciting/

[Rusty Rebar]

It is certainly true about the link between fear mongering and profits, I wouldn't go so far as to think all bad things have been conjured up, I do think that Irma is seriously dangerous. But the media definitely makes money by scaring people.

[bsnub]

^ It's a fcuking hurricane and the most ferocious on record. That is terrifying to most people. How else should the media interpret that?

Maybe they could tell people to stay put and have a BBQ? smh...

[AntRobertson]

Maybe they could tell people to stay put and have a BBQ?

That's terrible advice.

Clearly what they need to do is wrap their heads in tinfoil...

[bsnub]

Clearly what they need to do is wrap their heads in tinfoil...

Right its the media's fault for causing a panic over the most powerful hurricane on record. GTFO

These trumpanzees minds have been rotted from the inside out.

[AntRobertson]

Tinfoil. I'm telling you, it will prevent hurricane damage and stop the beta-waves the media are beaming into your head to get you to buy shit... Err, other than tinfoil. Buy tinfoil.

[wasabi]

Any updates on the progress of this fake hurricane.

[tomcat]

...friends in Jacksonville and Tampa have already relocated for the duration: one to the wilds of Alabama, the other to Virginia...tRumpettes caught in situ by the storm may have a reality check thrust upon them...

[bsnub]

Who didn't see this coming......


Rush Limbaugh will be evacuating his home in Palm Beach, Fla., just days after stating that creating panic around hurricanes helps advance a climate change agenda.

“May as well announce this. I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated radio program on Thursday. “We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.”

Conservative political commentator and author Mark Steyn will fill in for Limbaugh of Friday.

Controversy swirled around Limbaugh throughout the week after the 66-year-old said that while he's "not a meteorologist," and nothing he says "should be considered to be a forecast or a prediction," he believes that hurricanes are often hyped to help increase ratings on the media side while driving sales for retailers who offer storm supplies.

"There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it. You can accomplish a lot just by creating fear and panic," Limbaugh said Tuesday. "You don’t need a hurricane to hit anywhere. All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and more dangerous, and you create the panic, and it’s mission accomplished, agenda advanced."

"Now, how do you do this? Well, any number of ways," he continued. "Let’s take South Florida television, for example. There is a symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage people’s homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens?"

"Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase," he added. "And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media."

After heavy criticism from The Washington Post and NBC meteorologist Al Roker, among others, Limbaugh devoted considerable time on his radio show to insist he had also said Hurricane Irma, a deadly Category 4 storm with winds of up to 185 mph that has been tracking to likely hit South Florida for days, was "dire" and mammoth."

"It’s gonna affect Florida no matter where it goes. And the effects in Florida, depending on where, are gonna be damaging," Limbaugh said on his radio show on Thursday.

Limbaugh also said it would be "legally impossible" to do his program on Friday, which CNN security analyst Juliette Kayyem noted means his area of Palm Beach County is under mandatory evacuation.

Omg. "Legally impossible" = mandatory evacuation. This is too rich. Real deniers don't listen to evacuation orders. Fight the power, Rush. http://t.co/0NAqMHxxDG
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) September 8, 2017

“Please evacuate as we are now telling you,” County Administrator Verdenia Baker said Thursday while urging residents to move to a local shelter or stay with family outside the evacuation zone.

“Evacuate miles — not hundreds of miles.”


Limbaugh to evacuate after calling Irma climate change ploy | TheHill

[misskit]

^ I was hoping he would stay to prove it a hoax and get his fat ass tossed around by Irma.

[Maanaam]

It's a fcuking hurricane and the most ferocious on record. That is terrifying to most people. How else should the media interpret that?

Exactly.

I was hoping he would stay to prove it a hoax

A man of principle would have. Just shows he doesn't believe the BS he peddles.

[tomcat]

...this just in: a twaddle of evangelicals warn of God's wrath:

Did lesbians cause Hurricanes Irma and Harvey? God knows.
by Dana Milbank

It’s that season again. An ominous swirl forms in the Atlantic, citizens batten down or evacuate, TV weather reporters put on rain slickers and, as predictably as National Weather Service bulletins, some End-Times pastors and other provocateurs on the right attribute the storm to a wrathful God’s vengeance on liberals.

The storm surge has already washed up Jim Bakker, whose televangelism never quite recovered from his sex scandal and prison sentence for fraud. After Hurricane Harvey, he declared that “this flood is from God,” punishment for the former mayor of Houston attempting to subpoena ministers’ sermons.

Bakker said this while promoting his “Tasty Pantry,” a bucket of dehydrated food to help survive the apocalypse, and while sharing his set with Pastor Rick Joyner, who agreed storms don’t “happen by accident.”

Likewise, Pastor Kevin Swanson has said the path of Hurricane Irma would be altered by God if the Supreme Court quickly made abortion and gay marriage illegal, “before Irma does her damage,” as Right Wing Watch noted.


Radio preacher Rick Wiles, likewise, said Houston is underwater because it “boasted of its LGBT devotion.” And Ann Coulter — bless her — suggested it might have something to do with the city’s former mayor being a lesbian. “I don’t believe Hurricane Harvey is God’s punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor,” she tweeted. “But that is more credible than ‘climate change.’ ”

Where there is mischief, there is Rush Limbaugh, declaring that Irma is not an act of God but a case of liberal media hype to make people believe that climate change is real. “There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it,” he argued, claiming that “hurricanes are always forecast to hit major population centers.” (That puts Limbaugh in company with Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist popular with President Trump, who wanted to know why the government didn’t use “technologies” to kill the storm before it made landfall.)

But the particulars of Irma and Harvey make it more difficult to assert that they are the work of a wrathful God. The country is now run by a Republican president who enjoys the support of many conservative evangelical Christian leaders. Texas and Florida, the two states most affected by the storms, both voted Republican last year. The governor and lieutenant governor of Texas have championed social-conservative causes. God swamped Republican areas around Houston just as He swamped the city. And Houston voters aren’t exactly liberal: In 2015 they defeated an anti-discrimination ordinance that would have protected gay people.


This could explain why some of the most prominent members of the wrathful-God school have been reluctant to see divine judgment at work in Irma and Harvey.

Pat Robertson, who saw God’s hand in the Haiti and San Fernando Valley earthquakes, has also said U.S. political pressure on Israel causes natural disasters in the United States, and he warned that gay tourists at Disney World could cause a meteor strike. But he has been quiet about Harvey and Irma.

Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, who blamed the Sandy Hook school shooting on tolerance of gay marriage and abortion, has made no similar claims this time.

The Religion News Service noted that “where conservative Christian leaders have sometimes apportioned blame for natural disasters, some are now publicly cautioning against it.”

Michael Brown, a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, cautioned that “we must be very careful before we make divine pronouncements about hurricanes and other natural disasters,” and he said Houston was “one of the few cities that has stood bravely against the rising tide of LGBT activism. Why would God single out Houston for judgment?”

Unless — heaven forbid — God supports the rising tide of LGBT activism?

It’s specious and irresponsible, of course, to claim that God is directing weather patterns to make political statements. But let’s do it anyway. Using the theological reasoning of Bakker, Robertson, et alia, it seems reasonable to conclude that hurricanes Harvey and Irma are God’s punishment for:

President Trump.

The GOP Congress.

Ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for “dreamers” (further evidence: Hurricane Jose).

Pardoning Joe Arpaio.

Firing James B. Comey.

Jeff Sessions threatening to prosecute reporters.

Anthony Scaramucci.

Sebastian Gorka.

Joel Osteen.

Trump’s speech in Phoenix.

Staff cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Betsy Devos’s Title IX policy.

Ryan Zinke’s national-monument policy.

Deregulation.

Trump’s proposed tax cuts.

Texas calling a special session of the legislature to take up an anti-transgender bill.

Facebook accepting political ads from Russia.

Or we could skip all that and just accept that it’s God’s punishment for climate change. That, and the lesbian former mayor of Houston.

...see a pic of a popular clown: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.504deff3f7d3

[harrybarracuda]

It seems the silly fat c u n t is now evacuating from his "hoax".

"May as well announce this. I'm not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow," Limbaugh said on his Thursday radio show. "We'll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown."

Rush Limbaugh evacuates Florida home after floating unfounded theories about Hurricane Irma - Sep. 8, 2017

[bsnub]

^ That was covered four posts earlier. Do catch up..

[harrybarracuda]

^ That was covered four posts earlier. Do catch up..

Shut up, I just got back you c u n t.

I'm not reading back through *all* of the drivel.