Rush Limbaugh

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Rush Limbaugh (2019)

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( IPA [ ˈˈlɪmbɔː ]; born January 12, 1951 in Cape Girardeau , Missouri ) is a right-wing conservative American radio host, entertainer and presenter of The Rush Limbaugh Show . His show has been broadcast nationwide since August 1988; In 2005, according to an Arbitron survey, it had between 14 and 20 million listeners per week. This makes its audience within the talk radio segment the largest in the USA. Along with Sean Hannity, Limbaugh is considered one of the most influential representatives of the New Right in the mass media.

Life

family

Rush Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau to Mildred "Millie" Carolyn ( née Armstrong), and Rush Hudson Limbaugh Jr. born. His father was a lawyer and fighter pilot in World War II who served in the China - Burma - India area . The first name "Rush" is reminiscent of the maiden name of the family member Edna Rush. There are quite a few lawyers in his family, as well as his father, his grandfather and his brother David. His uncle Stephen N. Limbaugh sr. is a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan in a Missouri district court, and his cousin Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. is a Missouri Supreme Court Justice. Grandfather Rush Limbaugh sr. served as Missouri attorney, judge, special agent, and member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 1930 to 1932. Limbaugh's grandfather was highly regarded as one of the "patriarchs" of the Cape Girardeau Society and long-time chairman of the Missouri Historical Society. As Rush sr. died at the age of 104, he was still practicing law. The federal court building in Cape Girardeau is named after him.

Limbaugh has been married to event manager Kathryn Rogers for the fourth time since 2010. At the end of January 2020, he informed the public about his advanced lung cancer.

Early years

Limbaugh began his radio career as a teenager in 1967 in his hometown of Cape Girardeau under the name Rusty Sharpe. He graduated from Cape Central High School in 1969. At the request of his parents, he enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University . After two semesters he dropped out of his studies; his mother said, "he flunked everything," even a modern dance event. As he told a reporter in 1992, "he didn't seem interested in anything but radio".

He then moderated music programs on changing radio stations under the pseudonym Jeff Christie . In 1979 he started working for the Kansas City Royals baseball team for several years .

Start of radio career

Rush Limbaugh (r.) With MP George Radanovich (R) (before 1997)

In 1984 Limbaugh began as a regular talk show host on the medium wave broadcaster KFBK in Sacramento, California. Prior to that, he had mostly moderated music programs on a number of small broadcasters. The show also helped medium wave broadcasters become a news and conversation medium when audience numbers fell in the 1970s. The rise of Rush Limbaugh and his right-wing conservative show also coincided with a change in US media law. Until 1987, American radio stations were required to provide balanced political coverage. The " Fairness Doctrine ", a regulation from 1949, was abolished under President Reagan in 1987. Until then, if a conservative point of view was taken in a medium, a progressive or liberal stance had to be opposed (and vice versa). So there were conservative talk formats even before that, but until then it was not possible to give so much space to an ideologically completely one-sided program with a homogeneous target group.

Since then, critics have often complained about the lack of balance between right-wing conservative and left-wing or liberal standpoints on most talk shows on US radio, especially on Limbaugh. Limbaugh replied that newspapers and television (with the exception of Fox News ), in his opinion, massively preferred left or “liberal” positions, which, however, did not correspond to the opinion of the population, which is why his program was a counterweight and not right-wing but speak for the majority. He was one of the first to consistently use liberal as a swear word, similar to Glenn Beck , Sean Hannity and others later . Be proven false statements and prevarications, so Limbaugh asserted mostly just to be a neutral reporter, but describes himself as an entertainer ( entertainer ), which of course do not claim, facts play. According to media researcher Allison Schafer of the American University in Washington, DC , the target group of Limbaugh consists of listeners, the majority of whom are male, white, conservative, poorly educated and already quite old.

Limbaugh's police photo after the 2006 arrest

His addiction to oxycontin caused a stir in October 2003. In Germany, the active ingredient oxycodone is sold as a pain reliever under the trade name Oxygesic and falls under the Narcotics Act . The legal situation in the USA is similar. The prosecution investigated against Limbaugh on suspicion of having obtained prescriptions for the pain medication from several doctors, which Limbaugh denied. In April 2006, following a settlement, the lawsuit was dropped on the condition that Limbaugh had to pay the US $ 30,000 investigation and seek medical treatment for his addiction from a doctor. Prior to the exposure of his own addiction, Limbaugh had regularly condemned drug addicts and called for long prison sentences for drug addicts on his show.

The Rush Limbaugh Show

Logo for The Rush Limbaugh Show

Initially produced on a local broadcaster, the Rush Limbaugh Show became one of the most popular talk shows on US radio. It is distributed by the program marketer of the country's largest radio company, Premiere Radio Networks .

In 1988 Limbaugh left with his show KFBK Sacramento and went to the US-wide operating ABC Radio Network, which increased his popularity significantly. "The Rush Limbaugh Show" became one of the first national programs of its kind. Its show, with a strictly one-sided conservative tenor, had and has dozens of followers in the US. In addition, a change in the Telecommunications Act in 1996 largely lifted the ownership restrictions for radio and television stations, which favored large corporations, where Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others. a. are under contract.

At the beginning of July 2008 it was announced that Limbaugh had extended the employment contract with his employer, Premiere Radio Networks , which belongs to the largest US media conglomerate iHeart Media , to 2016 and received a total of more than 400,000,000 dollars. After the 12 o'clock news, Limbaugh talked for three hours “mainly about politics, about the world, about life, preferably about himself”.

Views

Rush Limbaugh (r.) With US President Donald Trump and golfer Lexi Thompson at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach (2019)

In his first book, The Way Things Ought To Be , Limbaugh professes to be a conservative and criticizes the behavior of other TV and radio presenters to deny any political bias and to claim to be objective. Limbaugh is a staunch critic of members of the less conservative, "left" wing within the Republican Party, treating them for the election victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election made responsible, and called on them to leave the Republican Party.

In the course of the presidential election in the United States in 2012 , Limbaugh made a name for himself as the most prominent voice of the right-wing tea party movement alongside Glenn Beck .

Drug policy

Limbaugh criticizes what he considers to be too lax legislation and law enforcement in the US against drug-related crime . He believed that drug law enforcement was too lax, especially against white Americans.

feminism

Limbaugh is a staunch critic of feminism. He made the term Feminazi popular, the creation of which he attributes to the economist Tom Hazlett , and which he uses as a term for particularly intolerant feminists who are focused on the spread of abortion :

“I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists who they really are: Feminazis. Tom Hazlett, a good friend of mine and a respected and respected professor of economics at the University of California at Davis, coined the term to denote women who are intolerant of any view that challenges militant feminism. I often use it as a term for women obsessed with allowing a modern Holocaust to continue: abortion. "

- Rush Limbaugh : The Way Things Ought to Be. 1992

Family policy

Limbaugh advocates conservative values ​​when it comes to marriage and family. He is a defender of marriage in the sense of a heterosexual partnership. The fact that Limbaugh, who was married in their fourth marriage, accused President Barack Obama in the discussion about the recognition of same-sex partnerships in the United States that Obama was waging a “war on traditional marriage” by advocating gay marriage, led to sharp criticism of Limbaugh's double standards .

Foreign policy

According to his neoconservative views, Limbaugh advocates an interventionist foreign policy, calls for the greatest possible support from the US for Israel and criticizes what he believes to be anti-Israel policies of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration, and was and is a supporter of everyone under the George W. Bush's war operations commenced, including the Second Iraq War .

Criticism and controversy

Limbaugh with a Bust of Herself (2012)

Limbaugh's remarks were and are often highly controversial. So he expressed himself z. B. on the torture scandal in Abu Ghuraib to the effect that the treatment of the Iraqis by US soldiers was no worse than an initiation rite at the Skulls and Bones fraternity . By going against the American perpetrators, you would punish people and ruin their lives just "because they enjoyed themselves."

In 2010 he called for Julian Assange , the founder of Wikileaks , to be lynched. On October 14, 2011, he criticized the US government under Barack Obama providing funds to fight the terrorist Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Africa. He stated on his radio show, “ Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. You are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama sends troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means to kill them ... So this is another war: hundreds of soldiers to wipe out Christians in Sudan and Uganda. ”Later on the same show, according to one Pause, though Limbaugh rowed back and said, "Is that right? The LRA is being accused of really bad stuff? Kidnapping of children, torture, murder, that kind of thing? Well, we only found out today. We will of course do careful research. Nonetheless, we sent hundreds of soldiers there to fight these guys ... and they say they are Christians. "

Limbaugh's remarks about black people are often criticized and have been viewed as racist by many observers . In 2007, he referred to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama as a “Magic Negro” and saw Obama as part of an ACORN- instigated conspiracy to teach black youth to hate America. In addition, on his radio show he argued that the phantom images of some wanted criminals resembled the image of the black politician and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson , and compared the black players of the National Football League to the Bloods and Crips , only without weapons. Limbaugh told a black caller that the caller should "take the bone out of his nose" and then call again.

In early 2012, he criticized Sandra Fluke, a student at Catholic Georgetown University , for testifying at a Democratic Congresswoman hearing. At this hearing, which was about the reimbursement of contraceptives for women by health insurance companies , Fluke had called for government support for women from poor sections of the population who could not afford condoms. Limbaugh, who as a supporter of the right -to-life movement ("pro-life") rejects contraception in principle, accused Fluke of wanting that women should get money from the state to have sex. Among other things, he referred to her as “prostitutes”, “sluts” and “ Feminazi ” and assumed that she had so much sex that she could hardly walk. Finally, he asked them to post porn videos of themselves on the internet. A number of advertisers therefore canceled their orders. Limbaugh later apologized for his choice of words. Fluke, with whom President Barack Obama had also expressed his solidarity, did not accept this apology.

A few weeks before the 2012 presidential election, Limbaugh said on his broadcast that it was certain that Republican Mitt Romney would win a landslide victory over Obama: the polls that predicted otherwise were either badly done - because too few traditionally Republican-minded voters were asked - or simply falsified by the liberal media.

In March 2011, in connection with the Japanese tsunami disaster, Limbaugh mocked the waste separation system used in a reception center for flood victims who had become homeless. In doing so, he mocked the irony of fate that, in his opinion, was present here, that nature would have haunted those of all people who had committed themselves to protecting them with their waste separation behavior.

For Boston Marathon bombing Limbaugh said: "I think one should not reject that we are in this country in an economic disaster. There are people who just don't know what to do next. You won't find any work, no job, no hope. That leads to all sorts of anger and chaos. "

Charitable commitment

Commitment to leukemia and lymph gland cancer

Since 1990 Limbaugh has hosted the annual donation telethon EIB Cure-a-Thon for the benefit of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society - a non-profit organization that is dedicated to research into leukemia and lymph gland cancer and to caring for the sick and their families. In addition, Limbaugh made a generous donation of $ 250,000 annually from his personal fortune to the Society from 2003 to 2006. In 2007, Limbaugh donated $ 320,000 to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society , a sum that he subsequently made Year to $ 400,000.

Commitment to the children of deceased U.S. Marines and law enforcement officers

Limbaugh is a volunteer with the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation , which supports the children of Marines and law enforcement officers who died in their service.

Presidential Medal of Freedom

US President Donald Trump presented Limbaugh with the Medal of Freedom during the traditional State of the Union address on February 4, 2020 . Melania Trump made the award during the speech in the plenary chamber of the US House of Representatives .

Awards

First Lady Melania Trump (center) puts the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Limbaugh (2020)
  • Marconi Radio Award from the National Association of Broadcasters for Personality of the Year (1992)
  • Induction into the National Radio Hall of Fame (1993)
  • National Association of Broadcasters' Marconi Radio Award for Personality of the Year (1995)
  • Induction into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame (1998)
  • National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Radio Award for Personality of the Year (2000)
  • Marconi Radio Award from the National Association of Broadcasters for Personality of the Year (2005)
  • Marconi Radio Award from the National Association of Broadcasters in the Personality of the Year category (2014)
  • Children's Choice Book Award from the Children's Book Council in the category Author of the Year for Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans (2014)
  • Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump (2020)

Publications

  • The Way Things Ought to Be . Pocket Books, New York 1992, ISBN 0-671-75145-X .
  • See, I Told You So . Pocket Books, New York 1993, ISBN 0-671-87120-X .
  • Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans . Threshold Editions, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4767-5586-1 .
  • Rush Revere and the First Patriots: Time-Travel with Exceptional Americans . Threshold Editions, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4767-5588-5 .
  • Rush Revere and the American Revolution: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans. Threshold Editions, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4767-8987-3 .
  • Rush Revere and the Star-Spangled Banner: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans . Threshold Editions, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4767-8988-0 .
  • Rush Revere and the Presidency: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans . Threshold Editions, 2016, ISBN 978-1-5011-5689-2 .

Trivia

Web links

Commons : Rush Limbaugh  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Paul D. Colford: The Rush Limbaugh story: talent on loan from God: an unauthorized biography. St. Martin's Press, New York 1993, ISBN 0-312-09906-1 .
  2. ↑ The loudest limb on the family tree, radio's Rush Limbaugh is the 'big mouth'; branch of a solid old Cape Girardeau family. In: St. Louis Post-Dispatch. September 27, 1992.
  3. ^ Brian Stelter: Rush Limbaugh says he has been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Retrieved February 5, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Rush Limbaugh Gives Sean a Rare Interview. Fox News Channel , October 19, 2005, archived from the original on December 21, 2012 ; accessed on September 10, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Rush is Always Right . USA Weekend, Jan 24, 26, 1992, p. 7.
  6. ^ Rush Limbaugh Arrested On Drug Charges . In: CBS News . April 28, 2006.
  7. ↑ Rush Limbaugh. Retrieved August 3, 2017 (American English).
  8. ^ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): More than Fox News: Right opinion making on American radio | America - The latest news and information | DW | 09/10/2015. Retrieved August 3, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Rush Limbaugh. $ 400 million for the radio man . In: FAZ . July 11, 2008.
  10. ↑ Wednesday Quotes: Your Conservative Rock. RushLimbaugh.com, November 5, 2008; archived from the original on July 30, 2011 ; Retrieved September 7, 2014 .
  11. ↑ rushlimbaugh.com ( Memento from February 2, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  12. ↑ Unconscionable: McCain Staffers Attempting to Destroy Sarah Palin. RushLimbaugh.com, November 6, 2008; archived from the original on August 26, 2011 ; Retrieved September 7, 2014 .
  13. ↑ a b FAIR. FAIR, accessed March 3, 2012 .
  14. ↑ a b Rush H. Limbaugh: The Way Things Ought to Be. Pocket Books, 1992 S. 191st .
  15. ↑ Jack Mirkinson, Rebecca Shapiro: Rush Limbaugh: Obama Leading 'A War On Traditional Marriage'. In: Huffington Post . October 5, 2012, accessed September 7, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Congrats to Rush Limbaugh on his fourth traditional marriage at salon.com, accessed May 10, 2012.
  17. ^ Rush Limbaugh Has Destroyed More Marriages than Obama's Gay Marriage Support ( Memento of May 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at politicususa.com, accessed on May 10, 2012.
  18. ^ Pacifist kooks as dangerous as Al Qaeda. Rushlimbaugh.com, January 26, 2007, accessed September 10, 2014 .
  19. ^ Everything in the Israeli-Hamas Conflict is Ass Backwards! Rushlimbaugh.com, July 25, 2014, accessed September 10, 2014 .
  20. ↑ Stephanie Stro: Limbaugh Sells Critical Letter for $ 2.1 million. In: NY Times . October 20, 2007, accessed September 6, 2014 .
  21. ^ Susan Sontag: Regarding the Torture of Others . In: New York Times. May 23, 2004.
  22. ↑ Michael Seemann: Transparency: Wikileaks is the Napster of the rulers . In: The time . December 13, 2010, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed on May 23, 2017]).
  23. ^ Rush Limbaugh: Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians . Transcript from Rush Limbaugh Show . October 14, 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  24. ↑ Blake Hounshell: Rush Limbaugh on Lord's Resistance Army: Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians . In: Foreign Policy Blog . October 15, 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2012.
  25. ↑ Nassira Nicola: Black face, white voice: Rush Limbaugh and the "message" of race. In: Journal of Language and Politics. Volume 9, No. 2, 2010, pp. 281-309. doi : 10.1075 / jlp.9.2.06nic .
  26. ^ A b John K. Wilson: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason . Thomas Dunne Books, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-312-61214-6 , p. 19 .
  27. ↑ David Roediger: White Looks: Hairy Apes, True Stories and Limbaugh's Laughs. In: Minnesota Review. Volume 47, No. 1, 1996, pp. 37-47.
  28. ^ John K. Wilson: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason. Thomas Dunne Books, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-312-61214-6 , p. 108 .
  29. ↑ a b Limbaugh's Attack on Student is Only the Latest in Hate Talk . In: Intelligence Report . ( Southern Poverty Law Center ). 146, summer 2012.
  30. ^ John K. Wilson: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Rush Limbaugh's Assault on Reason . Thomas Dunne Books, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-312-61214-6 , p. 16 .
  31. ^ Limbaugh Launched 46 Personal Attacks On Fluke; He Apologized For Two Words . In: Media Matters for America . March 5, 2012.
  32. ↑ Jack Mirkinson: Rush Limbaugh Advertisers Pull Commercials In Wake Of Sandra Fluke "Slut" Firestorm . In: The Huffington Post . 2nd / 3rd March 2012.
  33. ^ Rush Limbaugh: A Statement from Rush . March 3, 2012.
  34. ↑ Lucy Madison: Obama calls Sandra Fluke to offer support over Limbaugh comments . In: CBS News . March 2, 2012.
  35. ↑ Matt Negrin: Sandra Fluke Says Rush Limbaugh's Apology Doesn't Change Anything . In ABC News . March 5, 2012.
  36. ↑ youtube.com
  37. ^ Rush Limbaugh Mocks Japan Quake Refugees. In: The Huffington Post. March 16, 2011, accessed June 22, 2012 .
  38. ↑ blog.nz-online.de
  39. ↑ EIB Cure-a-Thon. In: Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, accessed August 4, 2006 .
  40. ↑ Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In: 501 (c). Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, accessed September 9, 2014 .
  41. ^ Rush Limbaugh Show. Transcript ( memento of October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). April 28, 2005.
  42. ^ NewsMax Media . Rush Limbaugh Donates $ 250K for Cancer Cure April 29, 2006.
  43. ↑ Rush Limbaugh Donates $ 320,000 to Kick Off 2007 Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Cure-A-Thon. In: Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, archived from the original on June 28, 2012 ; Retrieved September 9, 2014 .
  44. ↑ Rush Donates $ 400,000 to Kick Off Annual Blood Cancer Cure-A-Thon. In: Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, archived from the original on June 28, 2012 ; Retrieved April 18, 2008 .
  45. ^ Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation Marine Corps-Law Enforcement charity article. (Registration required) RushLimbaugh.com, accessed September 9, 2014 .
  46. ↑ a b Sebastian Hesse: State of the Union speech - Trump in its purest form. Retrieved February 5, 2020 .
  47. ^ A b Cydney Henderson: SOTU: Rush Limbaugh awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by president, Melania Trump. Retrieved February 5, 2020 .
  48. ↑ Annalisa Quinn: Book News: Rush Limbaugh Wins Children's Book 'Author Of The Year' Award. In: National Public Radio. May 15, 2014, accessed on August 17, 2020 .
  49. ↑ hawes.com
personal data
SURNAME Limbaugh, Rush
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Limbaugh III, Rush Hudson (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American radio host
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Cape Girardeau , Missouri