Seven of Hearts: Rush Limbaugh: Conservative Radio Host Whose Election Lies Reached Millions Meets his Maker 

“All Roads Lead to Mar-a-Lago”: Inside the Fury and Fantasy of Donald Trump’s Florida

Roger Stone, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro—they’ve all made their way to the Sunshine State, fueling and profiting from a tabloid culture that turns politics into spectacle, arguably Florida’s greatest export.

BY JOE HAGAN

AUGUST 10, 2021

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/08/the-fury-and-fantasy-of-donald-trumps-florida

[Excerpt:]

Before he died of cancer earlier this year, Limbaugh, a Trump supporter through and through, privately expressed contempt for Sean Hannity and Mark Levin, calling them “imitators” who copied his act but with half the wit and even less of the intellect (his opinion no doubt complicated by the fact that Limbaugh’s brother David is Hannity’s agent). In the Trump era, whatever thin line had existed between the political parties and their media mouthpieces was long ago erased.

 

“Rush Limbaugh’s election lies about Dominion Voting Systems reached millions of listeners” mediamatters.org, Feb. 3, 2021:

Limbaugh repeatedly promoted debunked conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems as part of his broader campaign to undermine the credibility of the 2020 presidential election:

He suggested that Dominion’s systems were designed to manufacture Democratic victories, falsely claimed that Dominion is “owned and operated” by former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez​,  that Dominion executives were seen “fleeing the jurisdiction” following the election, and​ that “the Democrats and the people were running the cheating software, the Dominion software with Smartmatic.

Limbaugh repeatedly promoted pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s false accusations against the company in November and continued to spread false information about Dominion in the following months.

 

“Rush Limbaugh dead at 70” 

thehill.com, Feb. 17, 2021

 

Judge orders two lawyers who filed suit challenging 2020 election to pay hefty fees: ‘They need to take responsibility’

By Rosalind S. Helderman

November 23, 2021 
[Excerpts:]

A federal judge has ordered two Colorado lawyers who filed a lawsuit late last year challenging the 2020 election results to pay nearly $187,000 to defray the legal fees of groups they sued, arguing that the hefty penalty was proper to deter others from using frivolous suits to undermine the democratic system.

“As officers of the Court, these attorneys have a higher duty and calling that requires meaningful investigation before prematurely repeating in court pleadings unverified and uninvestigated defamatory rumors that strike at the heart of our democratic system and were used by others to foment a violent insurrection that threatened our system of government,” Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter wrote.

The two argued that a scheme was engineered by the voting machine vendor Dominion Voting Systems; the tech company Facebook, its founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan; and elected officials in four states. They had sought $160 billion in damages. (Boldface added]

Their case was dismissed in April. In August, Neureiter ruled that the attorneys had violated their ethical obligations by filing it in the first place, arguing that the duo had run afoul of legal rules that prohibit clogging the courts with frivolous motions and lodging information in court that is not true. At the time, he called their suit “the stuff of which violent insurrections are made,” alleging they made little effort to determine the truth of their conspiratorial claims before filing them in court. He ordered them to pay the legal fees of all of the many entities they had sued.

 

“The hosts who replaced Rush Limbaugh just aired their first segment and it’s embarrassing”

Carl Gibson

New York, June 22, 2021

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rush-limbaugh-clay-travis-buck-sexton-b1870138.html

[Excerpt:]

For decades, Rush Limbaugh was the lightning-rod of American political discourse. His racist invectivehomophobic bile, and misogynistic tirades drew scorn and controversy, and even inspired a massive advertiser boycott.

Limbaugh’s legendary toxicity even supplanted my income for a spell: In 2011 and 2012, a Democratic operative paid me to call into Rush Limbaugh’s show and debate him. I was given bonuses whenever Limbaugh got flustered and the segment went viral.

Even in death, Rush Limbaugh was polarizing — Fox News spent the day broadcasting hagiographies of him, and leftist Twitter made the macabre hashtag #RotInHellRush trend.

 

Thomas Dabney dabneytc@me.com

Wed, Nov 24, 11:08 PM (4 days ago)

to me

Judge orders two lawyers who filed suit challenging 2020 election to pay hefty fees: ‘They need to take responsibility’

The federal judge ordered the duo to pay more than $187,000, arguing that the penalties are important in deterring future lawsuits aimed at the democratic system.

By Rosalind S. Helderman

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/they-need-to-take-responsibility-federal-judge-orders-hefty-fees-assessed-against-two-lawyers-who-filed-suit-challenging-2020-election/2021/11/22/b7ff5392-4be7-11ec-b0b0-766bbbe79347_story.html

“If the RNC has substantive disagreements with the Biden administration’s moves, it should air them and try to convince the administration to do better. That’s what a loyal opposition is supposed to do. But instead, the RNC conducts itself as a propaganda outlet, like a domestic version of RT or Sputnik, whose allegiance isn’t to America, but to the narrow interests of Republican meme wars. They’re calling the president “weak” and a “liar” while he’s trying to avoid World War III. Whose interest does that serve?
I suppose there’s a place for this sort of thing. But our political parties aren’t supposed to be that place. The political parties are supposed to put country over party.
Some grownup should counsel these kids at the RNC to quit their jobs. Nihilism corrupts the soul. No job is worth that.”

— Jonathan V. Last