QUOTE (Mayoria @ Jul 6 2008, 08:58 PM)
What really stumps me is this accusation of lies? What are the actual (as in subject to perjury) lies??
So easy to just spew out the word "lies" when you disagree so emotionaly.
To the contrary, there is nothing emotional about stating an objective fact.
Here are a smattering of just SOME of his lies (listing them all would be far too voluminous an affair, so here are just a few of the more precious ones excerpted from an entire book devoted to listing those lies, called "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error"
with a lovely foreward from Molly Ivins):
Limbaugh Lie: "Don't let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America in the '80s resulted in a bigger gap between the have and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth." (from his book chock full of lies, "The Way Things Ought to Be", p. 70)
Truth: CBO numbers for after-tax incomes show that in 1980 the richest fifth of our country had eight times the income of the poorest fifth. By 1989, the ratio was more than 20-to-1.
Limbaugh Lie: "The poorest people in America are better off than the mainstream families of Europe." (On air)
Truth: The poorest 20 percent of Americans can purchase an average of $5,433 worth of goods with their income. Meanwhile, in Germany, the average person can purchase $20,610 worth of goods; in France, $19,200; in Britain, $16,730. (World Development Report 1994)
Limbaugh Lie: "According to University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson, of the 29 million blacks in America, the largest percentage--35 percent--are upper middle class, both professional (lawyer, doctor) and white collar; 32 percent are middle class; and 33 percent are considered poor." ("The Way Things Ought to Be", p. 224)
Truth: Wilson
actually said (in the Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1992) that "20 percent of blacks are in the professional middle class," which includes teachers and nurses, and that a further 15 percent are in "nonprofessional white-collar positions," such as secretarial or sales jobs. Limbaugh deceptively calls all these "upper middle class" -- a description that hardly fits teachers, let alone salesclerks. The category Limbaugh calls "middle class" Wilson refers to as "working class," who he says are "vulnerable to job loss through economic restructuring".
Limbaugh Lie: "There are more acres of forestland in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492." (another book of lies, "See, I Told You So", p. 171)
Truth: Forests in what are now the 50 states used to cover about 1 billion acres before European settlement, according to U.S. Forest Service. Today, there are only 737 million acres of forestland, much of which lacks the ecological diversity of old-growth forest (the American Forestry Association).
Limbaugh Lie: "There is no conclusive proof that nicotine's addictive, the same with cigarettes causing emphysema and other diseases." (On air, 1994)
Truth: There's tons of evidence publicly available from the American Medical Association alone, not to mention the 1988 Surgeon General's report in which C. Everett Koop stated that specifically. And of course there are the 50,000 other studies from dozens of countries spanning decades of research. Hell, it's even in the Encyclopedia Britannica! But then there's a reason why a R.J. Reynolds report titled "'Reframing the Debate' Communications Plan" lists a goal of "Shifting the debate and framework under which cigarette-related issues are evaluated in the future," and on page 5 lists Rush Limbaugh as a selected media outlet to approach for assistance in carrying out this plan.
Limbaugh Lie: [Regarding California contractor C.C. Myers completing repairs 74 days early on the earthquake-damaged Santa Monica Freeway] "There was one key element that made this happen. The governor of California declared the freeway a disaster area and by so doing eliminated the need for competitive bids. Government got the hell out of the way. They gave this guy the job without having to go through the rigmarole of giving 25 percent of the job to a minority-owned business and 25 percent to a woman." (On air 1994)
Truth: There was competitive bidding. Myers beat four other contractors for the job. Affirmative action rules applied. At least 40 percent of the subcontracts went to minority or women-owned firms. Far from getting out of the way, dozens of state employees were on the job 24 hours a day. Furthermore, the federal government picked up the tab for the whole job.
Limbaugh Lie: "Banks take the risks in issuing student loans and they are entitled to the profits." (On air 1993)
Truth: Banks take no risks in issuing student loans, which are federally insured.
Limbaugh Lie: "Oh, how they relished blaming Reagan administration policies, including the mythical reductions in HUD's budget for public housing, for creating all of the homeless! Budget cuts? There were no budget cuts! The budget figures show that actual construction of public housing increased during the Reagan years." ("The Way Things Ought to Be", p. 242-243)
Truth: In 1980, 20,900 low-income public housing units were under construction; by 1988, 9,700, a decline of 54%. In terms of 1993 dollars, the HUD budget for the construction of new public housing was slashed from $6.3 billion in 1980 to $683 million in 1988. "We're getting out of the housing business. Period," a Reagan HUD official declared in 1985.
Here's a particularly deadly, if not genocidal lie:
Limbaugh Lie: "The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent." ("The Way Things Ought to Be", p. 135)
Truth: There is a 3% failure rate of condoms breaking, and failure rates decline as users' experience with the method grows. Moreover, according to the National Institutes of Health two-year study of couples in which one partner was HIV-positive, among those who used condoms regularly, there wasn't a single new infection. In Uganda where there was an extremely active campaign to increase condom usage, infection rates declined 66% as there was a corresponding rise in condom usage.
This is one of my personal favorites:
Limbaugh Lie: "There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?" ("See, I Told You So", p. 68)
Truth: According to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, estimates of the pre-Columbus population of what later became the United States range from 5 million to 15 million. Native populations in the late 19th century fell to 250,000, due in part to genocidal policies. Today the U.S.'s Native American population is about 2 million.
And another:
Limbaugh Lie: "Anita Hill followed Clarence Thomas everywhere. Wherever he went, she wanted to be right by his side, she wanted to work with him, she wanted to continue to date him.... There were no other accusers who came forth after Anita Hill did and said, 'Yeah, Clarence Thomas, he harassed me, too.' There was none of that." (On air, 1994)
Truth: Hill could not have continued to date Thomas, since they never dated. Two other women, Sukari Hardnett and Angela Wright, came forth in the Thomas case with
additional sexual harassment charges.
But this one's classically ridiculous shit from Rush:
Limbaugh Lie: "You better pay attention to the 1993 budget deal because there is an increase in beer and alcohol taxes." (On air, 1993)
Truth: There were no increases in beer and alcohol taxes in the 1993 budget.
Limbaugh Lie: "Those gas lines were a direct result of the foreign oil powers playing tough with us because they didn't fear Jimmy Carter." ("See, I Told You So", p. 112)
Truth: The first -- and most serious -- gas lines occurred in late 1973/early 1974, during the administration of
Richard Nixon.
And those are just some of the lies from the 90's! We haven't even gotten to the full-blown whoppers he's told in just the last 8 years....
What I
do get emotional about is that the
net effect of these lies has meant that many people have been talked into voting against their own best interests by this rank
con man.
