RUSH CALLS FOR RETURN TO SEGREGATED BUSES

You've got to hand it to Rush Limbaugh. Just when you think that bloated Nazi gasbag can't get any more despicable, he somehow tops himself. On his radio program Tuesday, Rush was busy fanning the flames of hatred, as usual, devoting the entire show to a white teenager getting beaten up by a black teenager on a schoolbus. Rush cited the incident as an example that President Obama is spreading racism against white people in America.

Even though local law enforcement said the fight was probably not racially motivated, Limbaugh said: “I think the guy’s wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson we’re being taught here today. Kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama’s America.”

(A full transcript of Tuesday's show can be found at mediamatters.org.)


Unabated, Rush continued the diatribe Wednesday: “In Obama’s America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, ‘Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” Limbaugh also said. “I wonder if Obama’s going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.”

"Obama's America?" What would Rush Limbaugh's America look like? Or, should I say, what DID it look like?

Segregated, separate and unequal. Buses, like everything else, were divided by race. Thankfully, Americans rejected Rush Limbaugh's America, but not without a struggle. It took a tired, middle-aged lady from Alabama named Rosa Parks to challenge segregated buses back in 1955. Her courage sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and moved a nation toward equality and civil rights.

An unlikely hero: Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, 1955

December 1st, 1955. At 6 pm, Rosa Parks boarded the bus and paid her fare. She sat in the "colored" section of the bus. Bus driver James F. Blake noted that the front of the bus was filled with white passengers and there were two or three white men standing, so he moved the "colored" section sign behind Parks and demanded that four black people give up their seats in the middle section so that the white passengers could sit.

Parks refused to give up her seat. When Parks refused to move, Blake called the police, and an Alabama police officer arrested her. She asked the officer, "Why do you push us around?" The officer said, "I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest." Parks later said, "I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind."

- a clip from Mighty Times, the Legacy of Rosa Parks, a documentary produced by Teaching Tolerance and Tell the Truth Pictures.

GOOD JOB, BARNEY!

You've probably seen this by now, but I must post it. Congressman Barney Frank stands up to the lunatic fringe opposing health care reform. Finally, someone responds to these ludicrous claims with candor instead of kid gloves.

Do you get your "facts" on health care from this asshole?

Already, the right wing blowhards have attacked Frank in full force. Hannity, O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh have been shocked, shocked, shocked at Frank's behavior. Limbaugh even surfaced from an Oxycontin daze long enough to sling a gay joke at Frank, who is openly homosexual (which is beside the point). These pudgy pundits have consistently fanned the flames of ignorance and fear sweeping across the dumber parts of the nation. In effect, they've sent in their dupes with half-baked ideas and misinformation to disrupt an important national dialog. Half-cocked and fully loaded (some with guns, mind you) these sheep repeat what they've been told by these TV personalities. I'm sure these wealthy pundits can afford private health care, but their minions with their swastika signs are clearly working against their own interests.

But you've read some history, right? We've always had reactionaries opposing progress. In another age, the Limbaughs would be railing against abolishing slavery (bad for business--let's not rush things) or siding with mine owners against radical "Reds" working to remove children from the coalmines. A while back, Fox News headlines might have looked like this:

Obama going too far? Socialist plan hurts business by removing children from the coalmines! What is happening to our America?

POP QUIZ

Q: What's the difference between the Hindenburg and Republican spokesman Rush Limbaugh?

A: One is a flaming Nazi gas bag, and the other is just an airship.

After an incendiary speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, gasbag Limbaugh is the de facto voice of the Republican Party. At CPAC, Limbaugh brought a cheering crowd to its feet several times praying for Obama to fail, slamming John Kerry's service in Vietnam, and calling on fellow conservatives to take back the country.

Limbaugh used his self-described "first national address" to hurl insults and snide remarks, and embrace all the tired old tropes of the Bush Administration. We have to ask ourselves: With Limbaugh at the helm, and a few token minorities pushed toward the cameras, do the Republicans have a snowball's chance in hell? We doubt it. (What's their secret weapon? Sarah Palin. Puh-lease!)

Bring 'em on!



More on the latest from Rachel Maddow:

LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!

President-elect Barack Obama introduced the new national security team Monday, and then took a much-needed break. Dude has been busy, yo. The order of the day? Shake it, shake it, shake it like a Polaroid picture. Hey ya!

No big surprises at Monday's press conference, but Obama officially announced that former campaign rival Hillary Clinton will be the new secretary of state. Not that it matters, but bellowing gas bag Rush Limbaugh called the selection "brilliant."

But who cares what he says?

Obama also announced that Bush's Pentagon chief Robert Gates will stay on as defense secretary for continuity sake--we're fighting two wars, after all. In related news, Obama is ousting top Bush Pentagon officials, including many of Gates's top deputies. More from the Washington Post, HERE.

Other picks: Marine Gen. James Jones as White House national security adviser, former Justice Department official Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security, and Susan Rice as UN Ambassador.


Meanwhile, in another part of town, outgoing President George W. Bush told ABC News' Charlie Gibson "I was unprepared for war," and "I'm sorry" for the economic crisis.

Bush expressed remorse that the financial crisis has cost jobs and harmed retirement accounts. "I'm sorry it's happening, of course," he said. "Obviously I don't like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s."

Bush pointed to incorrect intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as "the biggest regret of all the presidency."

"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." When pressed by Gibson, Bush was clear. "That is a do-over that I can't do."

This ABC interview raises many questions, the most salient being: "Can Barack Obama start early?"


The ABC News interview with outgoing president, George W. Bush, 12/01/08

MEASURING THE LIMBAUGH EFFECT

Stop me if you've heard this one. What's the difference between the Hindenburg and Rush Limbaugh?

One is a huge Nazi gasbag.

The other is a dirigible.

Okay, this is an update on a story we ran a while back about Rush urging Republicans in Texas to cross over and vote for Hillary in the primary, thereby stopping the Obama momentum and insuring the Democratic Punch and Judy Show continues. The New York Times political blog gives us this report here.

BIG FAT IDIOT TAKES CREDIT

Conservative gasbag Rush Limbaugh claimed some credit today for Hillary Clinton's victories in Texas and Ohio.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, "Limbaugh spent much of his show Monday exhorting Republican listeners to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary for Hillary Clinton to prevent Democrats from unifying around Barack Obama as Republicans have done around John McCain.

'What we did, if we did anything, is to create a bunch of chaos in the Democrat Party and it worked,' Limbaugh said."

For more, see the Sun-Times article here.