(Promoted by Colorado Pols)
Some less than astute political observers say both sides do it.
They mostly use the false equivalency dodge as a way to seem reasonable and centrist in a time when reasonableness is mostly exhibited by the left, and centrism is a convenient myth of the politics in some alternate universe visible only to Hubble.
Maybe both sides do lie at times, but no one does it better, more frequently, or without causing as much harm to our nation as the hearing impaired drug-addict Rush Limbaugh.
As the polar vortex froze the nation caused deaths here and elsewhere, Rush couldn't help but lie.
The severe weather has been blamed for at least 16 deaths so far, including a worker who was crushed by a shipment of rock salt at a Philadelphia storage facility. One person died and two were injured when a passenger jet crashed while attempting to land at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport in western Colorado yesterday.
Rush's lie was so simple to check, yet will be almost impossible to refute among the vast numbers of Limbaugh listener's in Colorado:
"Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Well, they just created it for this week.
Right on schedule, the media have to come up with a way to make it [the cold] sound like it's completely unprecedented, because they've got to find a way to attach this to the global warming agenda."
Of course, the cold is not unprecedented. It is, after all, Winter! What is most likely unprecedented are changes in the path of the jet stream over North America and the size and location of the polar vortex, that usually stays in a predictable place.
And it took only a few minutes to disprove Rush's lie:
Al Roker says the polar vortex is real and not a "liberal media conspiracy" like conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh claims.
"Let me tell you something," Roker said on "Today," while pointing to a photo of the term defined in his old college textbook.
"We've never used the phrase 'global warming' or 'climate change' in conjunction with this… Okay?! So for all the doubters out there, stuff it."
Roker also tweeted a photo of the term from his textbook, saying it's "Meteorology 101. No political agenda."
Here's where Rush's lies are heard in Colorado:
|Colorado Springs||KVOR-AM||740||M-F 10a-1p|
|Grand Junction||KNZZ-AM||1100||M-F 10a-1p|
No one knows the number of lies he's foisted on our less than astute neighbors, nor how those lies affect our climate, our politics, and our environmental policies.
But they surely can't help, and that's perfectly OK with Rush, his Clear Channel bosses, and various and sundry Koch Brothers.