Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
It is Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Open Line Friday.
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yahoo.
This, ladies and gentlemen, we had a great Open Line Friday call yesterday, in fact.
33-year-old Ian.
That was an eye-opening phone call.
That was a classic phone call.
Not just because of what Ian said, but what it inspired.
Have you been checking, by the way, Fire Chat?
Have you?
Appears to be the case.
It does.
Anyway, folks, great to have you.
Open Line Friday, whatever you want to talk about, feel free at it.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Email address, lrushbow at eibnet.com.
We have one of the best graphics designers and artists in all of the...
We got two of them, actually.
We got one of the greatest graphics artists at RushLimbaugh.com.
His name is Michelle.
And we got another great graphics person over at our 2fbit.com website.
And, you know, we keep those websites separate for a host of reasons.
The T and the books are separate entity and so forth, and it forever shall be.
And then the RushLimbaugh.com is everything related to the radio show and so forth.
Anyway, point is that we just released today 21 new wallpapers for your iPhone 5.
They are sized for the iPhone 5.
You can probably use it for a 4-4S if you still have one and just pinch it to make it fit.
They're not sized for the iPad.
If you want to, you can try it on an iPad and blow it up.
But some are really, really cool.
I, of course, told Michelle up there, the kind of things I was looking for in wallpapers.
Sometimes your wallpaper gets too busy.
So I wanted everything.
I wanted simple, simplistic, and I wanted busy.
I wanted lots of colors.
I wanted some of the EIB logo, some with my signature, a couple with my picture.
So there's 21 of them, and they're ill freebo.
You do not have to be a member because they're going to be all over anyway, even if we did put them on the subscriber side.
So if you just go to rushlimbaugh.com, don't be confused by our headline.
The headline says wallpapers for the iPhone 5.
There are 21 new wallpapers.
You've got to click on the link to get to all of them.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a disturbing day for free speech and this country.
And it's been trending.
For 25 years, I have been, I don't know, thinking that at some point we're going to bottom out or reach a point where a majority of Americans are just going to put their foot down and say no more.
But it hasn't happened.
The fear and the intimidation of average ordinary Americans is at an all-time high.
The fear and intimidation that is silencing people.
I've been following a story for the past five days, and I purposely have not mentioned it because I didn't want to have any influence on the outcome.
I wanted to see where this went on its own.
Yes, talking about Brendan Icke from Mozilla.
I wanted to see where this went before I weighed in on it.
And there is cowardice, there is totalitarianism, there is political correctness doesn't even get close to describing what this story, for lack of a better term, is all about.
Suffice it to say that Brendan Icke, the average ordinary guy, happens to be a pretty brilliant computer tech engineer.
He's one of the co-founders of Mozilla.
Now, you may not know the name Mozilla, but if you use the Firefox internet browser, it comes from Mozilla.
And Brendan Eich, E-I-C-H, one of the co-founders.
And just recently, Brendan Eich was named CEO.
And then, because of the law in California requiring that all people that donate more than $100 to anything and a proposition about an initiative, have to be made public.
Some people found out that Brendan Icke, four years ago, donated $1,000 to Proposition 8, which was the California initiative to establish marriage as that between a man and a woman.
When it was discovered that Brendan Icke four years ago had donated $1,000 to Proposition 8, the literal what is the proper name for people who engage in this kind of behavior?
It's not, fascist is probably the closest way.
You could call them Nazis, but nevertheless, they went into gear and immediately Brendan Icke was all over the tech media, described as filled with hatred and anti-gay bigotry.
And his position, he had donated $1,000 to Proposition 8, and he had a personal opinion on gay marriage that was identical to President Barack Obama's in 2008.
And in 2008, President Obama and his entire regime, officially, were opposed to gay marriage until they came up on some tough times campaign donation-wise, needed some campaign money.
So Obama sent Biden out to all of a sudden announce that the regime had changed its mind on gay marriage.
Now, Brendan Icke, if you look at a picture of the guy, it looks like he wouldn't harm anybody or anything.
This is not the kind of guy that would hold a magnifying glass up on an anthill in the summertime and try to fry him.
He's not a mean guy.
He donated a paltry $1,000.
He has been drummed out of Mozilla.
And as such, he's been drummed out of the tech business now, more than likely.
All because he believes that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.
And he is being described now as a bigot and filled with hatred because he believes that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.
He tried to hang on when the controversy hit.
I could say, look, my personal political views have nothing to do with the way I plan on running Mozilla.
That didn't fly.
They had to get the scalp.
They had to take him out.
They had to send a message to anybody else that your view, if you are in the tech industry and if you work anywhere in the tech business and you're going to become a powerful executive anywhere, you had better toe the line.
You had better be in favor of everything the militant gay activists are in favor of or we're going to claim your scalp.
We're going to destroy your career.
And everybody is afraid of them.
So Brendan Eyke is gone for the identical position that President Barack Obama held at the exact same time in 2008.
Brendan Eich, by the way, did not become an activist on gay marriage or anti-gay marriage.
He just gave him some money.
He didn't join any marches.
He wasn't out trying to raise money or he just donated $1,000 and it was discovered four years after the fact.
Four years.
They made the donation in 2008.
It was discovered maybe more than four years.
I figure four years is when it was discovered.
They think that it was, but the LA Times, it doesn't matter.
It was going to be discovered anyway.
The law in California states anybody gives more than $100 will be identified.
It was.
That law was enacted after these donations were made.
Okay, so I'll double check on that, but I have just been informed that the law that says anybody who donates $100 or more in a California ballot initiative must be made public.
Apparently that law came after the Proposition 8.
Brendan Icke, just so you know, he also invented JavaScript, which your browser cannot work without.
I don't think too many people know what it is, but at any rate, this is just, nobody stood up and fought for the guy.
Not one person.
And I find, all of this supposedly is done in the name of tolerance.
Yeah, yeah, we had to get rid of this guy because he was intolerant.
We had to get rid of this guy because we had to get rid of hatred.
And the hatred and the bigotry and the intolerance here is all on the side of the fascists on the left.
They don't care.
They are delighted, folks.
I got to tell you, they're happy as hell with this outcome because they know that it sends a message to anybody else.
What now can be done?
If you hire somebody we don't approve of, it's not just in the tech business either, folks.
This is only going to grow and expand.
Now, a bunch of people have written about this.
One of them, John Hayward at Breitbart.
And he makes the point, as I just did, that this is the same opinion at the same time that was once held by the President of the United States until he changed his opinion based on his need for money.
And Mr. Hayward points out that if we had a president who was a real leader, he would have stood up here and just put a stop to all of this and would have urged everybody to calm down.
We're not going to claim any scalps here.
After all, this is a point of view that millions of Americans have.
And just because we all don't agree on something doesn't mean you lose your job in America if you don't agree with, in this case, militant gay activists.
But of course, Obama did not stand up because this is exactly the kind of thing that a descendant of Saul Alinsky inspires in people and promotes and quietly applauds privately applauds.
So from the same people who say we need to cooperate with one another, from the same people who tell us we need to cross the aisle and work together to come common ground and move ourselves forward.
All these people demanding that we all be tolerant of each other and understand and condemn the hatred, all of the bigotry, all of the hatred, all of the fascism is on the side of the people who are preaching and accusing others of it, which is true of so many people on the left.
In addition to that, I didn't know until I read Jonah Goldberg's column today that is published.
I think it's the New York Post, but it's a National Review.
He's a column's National Review.
Apparently, there is a reporter at Gawker, one of the Gawker guys, which is, by the way, a gay, for the most part, gay website operation, Gawker, Gizmodo, any number of.
And apparently, there's somebody there that's got, apparently, holds some sway, some influence with others in the business, demanding that people like me be put in jail because of what I'm saying about global warming.
And that there is a professor, and we've talked about this particular professor, there's a professor, some Northeastern Ivy League school or semi-Ivy League school who is promoting putting people in jail who do not agree with the official stance from the left on global warming.
Now, you in this audience, you need not fear because in this story, it is not you who believe me who would go to jail because you are just mind-numbed robots.
It is I who would go to jail.
I think the word is be put in cages.
And believe me, you know, 25 years ago, this kind of stuff, we'd laugh about it and make jokes and do parodies and satires.
All the while, it was for real.
All the while, these people really mean.
I'm telling you right now, if they could cage people that disagree with them, I know whatever it is, global warming, they would do it.
And they get some people in academia, you get the wrong judge somewhere.
You never know.
If nobody, this guy that called yesterday don't mean to make an example of him, 33-year-old Ian, one of his points was that, Rush, everybody's scared out here.
We're scared of doing things on their own.
We're scared of this.
We're scared of that.
Remember, we had a story last week about overprotected children.
We had a nation of kids who are adults, but they've been overprotected.
He said, Rush, you start talking about self-reliance and taking care of yourself.
Scares people.
This censorship movement that's called political correctness, it's actually fascism.
It obviously scares a lot of people, too.
I have the statement from some woman, some official at Mozilla explaining how everybody won here with this guy, Brendan Eich, being dispatched.
It's an amazing thing.
She's scared to death, too.
Everybody's scared to death over what?
2-3% of the population.
They're just scared to death.
Now, take a brief time out.
Open Line Friday.
Remember, whatever you want to talk about.
Hunky Dory, Fair Game, 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, Open Line Friday.
By the way, folks, this is why the IRS terrifying, terrorizing, and targeting the Tea Party is important.
That's why this matters.
What this is ultimately all about is the left being allowed, being able to find out who is donating to what so that they can be harassed and intimidated and then hopefully ultimately silenced.
They want to find out who all of the donors are to the Tea Party.
It's not just they don't want these organizations, these 501c3s, to spring up.
Once they do, once they have been granted tax-exempt status, then they want to find out who all the donors are so that every donor can get the Brendan Eich treatment if they deserve it.
And they will deserve it because they're donating to the Tea Party or Tea Party-related candidates.
That's really what the IRS targeting of the Tea Party is ultimately all about.
Now, Prop 8 donors, find out who backed California's anti-gay marriage amendment is a headline at the Huffing and Puffington Post on February, I'm sorry, March 5th of 2009.
A federal judge has denied a request to keep the names of donors to California's anti-gay marriage initiative secret, saying the public has a right to know who is giving money to state ballot measures.
Supporters of the initiative, which was approved by voters in November, had sought a preliminary injunction to hide the identities of those who contributed their campaign because they knew what was going to happen.
The donors would be targeted and harassed and intimidated and threatened and scared.
And that's exactly what's happened here.
In the case of this poor guy who didn't ever do anything to anybody, he gave $1,000 to supporters of Prop 8, simply saying, we believe marriage is that between a man and a woman.
And that has become hatred and anti-gay bigotry all of a sudden.
Amber back, great to have you.
El Rushbo on Open Line Friday.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882.
Mr. Snurdley feverishly screening calls even at this moment.
Now, there was another Huffing and Puffington Post article about the judge's ruling that donors could be made public, Prop 8 donors.
And it pointed this out.
Backers of the measure have claimed that further dissemination of the information on the site has led to various forms of harassment, ranging from boycotts of their businesses to death threats.
I'm having a metal block.
This is not about Prop 8, not even in California.
Some businessman in Oregon or the state of Washington, some Republican whose name escapes me.
This is 2012 campaign year.
It was learned, it was discovered he'd given a lot of money to Romney.
And they targeted this guy and tried to destroy his business.
I'm having a metal block on his name.
It ended up being talked about on Fox News.
It was all over the place.
And this guy hung in there despite these assaults on him and his business.
He hung in there.
He was not intimidated into silence.
But, you know, these people, they claim that all this is how they are inclusive, and this is how they're promoting diversity.
And they're not.
They are exclusionary.
There's no diversity tolerated here.
You've got to be one way.
There is no openness.
There is no kindness.
There is no compassion.
There's no inclusiveness.
And there certainly isn't any diversity on the left.
It's just a bunch of brown shirts.
And if you are not wearing one, you either soon will be or you're going to be ruined.
There is no dissent.
They have no interest in debating anybody.
They have no interest in discussing anything.
You disagree with them, you die.
Figuratively.
You're dead.
You don't exist.
You're a non-person anymore.
And we're going to take you out.
The website 8maps.com shows the names and occupations of people in San Francisco who donated to the Prop 8 campaign, overlaid on a Google map of the city indicating where they lived.
They just didn't find out their names.
They published their addresses and where these people lived who donated to Prop 8 so that they could be harassed.
In his ruling, Judge England noted that small persecuted groups whose very existence depended on some manner of anonymity, such as the Cold War-era Socialist Workers' Party, should be exempted from having to disclose their donors.
So small little groups of ragtag communists and socialists were allowed to be kept private because they could be harassed, but nobody else.
So, you see, communists who want to destroy the country get the protection of anonymity because they're so small and they're so insignificant.
We can't harass these poor people, but not people like Brendan Eich.
Brendan Eich, he gets no anonymity whatsoever.
Brendan Eyke gets no presumption of innocence.
He gets no anonymity.
He gets no privacy whatsoever.
Frank Vandersloot was the Romney donor that they hassled.
Now, I have here, ladies and gentlemen, a statement by Mitchell Baker, the executive chairwoman at Mozilla.
It says Mitchell.
I don't know if you might pronounce him Michelle.
I don't know.
You know, there are so many variations on the old-fashioned name Michelle now in terms of how it's spelled and how it's pronounced that you can't keep up anymore.
It's the one name that a spell check is totally confused by.
I know people that spell Michelle Michael with an E on the end of it.
You're supposed to figure it out.
So I don't know.
To me, Mitchell is a male name, but she might pronounce it Mitchell.
Anyway, her name is Mitchell Mitchell Baker.
She's the executive chairwoman at Mozilla.
And her defense of their intolerance, and forcing Brendan Icke to quit is intolerance.
I mean, they were intolerant of his view that marriage is a man and a woman.
That has now become hatred.
That marriage equals a man and a woman.
That's hatred.
That is anti-gay bigotry.
And so we can't include that in our company.
So here's her Orwellian defense of their intolerance.
And it's on the Mozilla blog.
By the way, again, Mozilla, if you don't know who it is, if you use the Firefox browser, Mozilla does it.
It's an open source thing that some people like.
Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard.
And this past week, we didn't live up to it.
We know why people are hurt and angry.
And they are right.
It's because we haven't stayed true to ourselves.
Well, let's just beat ourselves up here.
Let's just bend over, grab the ankles, and flog ourselves here.
All they did was name a co-founder of the company as CEO.
And then four years after the fact, they learn he gave $1,000 to Prop 8, and that means we know why people are hurt and angry.
Maybe the people who are hurt and angry are overreacting.
Maybe they're not entitled to feel that hurt and that angry.
What about people who don't even know this guy reacting with this kind of rage and anger?
People don't even know Brendan Icke demanding that he be canned, demanding that he step down, demanding that he get his mind right.
That equals hurt and anger.
And because we at Mozilla haven't stayed true to ourselves, we didn't act like you would expect Mozilla to act.
What do we expect you to act like?
We expected Mozilla would not appoint a guy like Brendan Icke a co-founder to CEO because he gave some money to Prop 8?
Is that what you think everybody expects of Mozilla?
In other words, everybody expects Mozilla to also be intolerant and not even consider their co-founder for CEO because he happened to give money to the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman?
Wow.
We didn't move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started.
We are sorry.
We must do better.
I mean, this is a total, total cave.
They're just begging to be forgiven.
Oh, we should have known that Brendan was a hate-filled bigot, and we should have never made him CEO.
Please forgive us.
So they're apologizing for being too slow to condemn somebody for having a different opinion on a politically correct issue.
And they've known about his heresy for almost a week.
They learned that this guy actually believes in marriage between a man and a woman.
Oh, they've known of his hatred.
They've known of his bigotry for a week now.
It took them too long to act.
Brendan Icke has chosen to step down from his role as CEO.
He made this decision for Mozilla and our community.
Yeah, Mr. Icke chose to step down like people chose to confess their guilt at Stalin's show trials.
Mozilla believes in both equality and freedom of speech.
The hell you say.
You do?
Mozilla believes in equality and freedom of speech?
How can you say that with a straight face?
After dispatching a CEO because he engaged in free speech, which the Supreme Court just affirmed giving money to a political cause is free speech, so he just got canned because of free speech.
And yet, we believe in both equality and freedom.
No, you don't.
Not even close.
That's why this is Orwellian.
As Orwell said, some people are more equal than others.
Orwell also said some people can't be trusted with free speech.
And now Mozilla is going to decide who they are.
Equality is necessary for meaningful speech, and you need free speech to fight for equality.
Figuring out how to stand for both at the same time can be hard.
Oh, it's not hard at all.
You simply are tolerant.
This is truly, it's alternative universe stuff.
Equality is necessary.
There isn't any at Mozilla for meaningful speech.
You're not interested in meaningful speech.
You're interested in speech that conforms.
And you need free speech to fight for equality.
Ah.
You don't have free speech.
You can somebody for what they say?
You claim you've got free speech?
Our organizational culture reflects diversity and inclusion.
No, it doesn't.
Your organizational culture reflects exclusiveness, exclusionary behavior, and no diversity whatsoever.
Mozilla has just illustrated how intolerant it is.
But they put out a statement, oh, no, we are the most tolerant people, and we're the most inclusive, and we've got the most free speech, and we've got the most equality.
Yeah, every kind of diversity, I guess, except diversity of thought.
We're not going to allow diversity of thought, are we?
No.
We welcome contributions from everyone, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation.
Well, that's a lot of damn qualifications that you seem to be attaching to people.
We welcome contributions from everyone, regardless of.
And you got to list the things that you take no note of?
This has always amazed me about the left.
No, no, we're not racist, and everybody's a black American, a brown American, an Asian American, a green American, an Hispanic American.
Everybody to the left is identified by what's on their surface first.
Nobody is ever identified by who they really are on the left.
They don't take the time to get beneath the surface on anybody.
There's an African American, a black person, equals slavery.
Woman, ha.
There's a woman, she's been mistreated, she's probably been denied abortions.
All these crazy, caricatured things that they attach to people.
And there are no individuals.
They just plug everybody into a group, whatever group they think they fit in based on their skin color or their gender or their race or their sexual orientation or their sexual transference or whatever other category they can come up with to dehumanize people.
All the while they think they are expanding the scope of humanity.
Well, they essentially deny it.
Listen to this.
We welcome contributions from everyone, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographical location, and religious views.
Mozilla supports equality for all.
If you do, you wouldn't have had time to come up with all those categories to plug people into.
And of course, all that, we welcome contributions of everyone regardless of blah, blah, unless you have a contrary opinion.
And then your age, culture, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, language, race, sexual orientation, geographic location, religious views matter not a whit.
Because if you have a contrary opinion, it doesn't matter where you come from, what you look like, who you've been, who you want to be.
Which is why the man who founded Mozilla, Brendan Eyke, had to be forced out because of having supported a position that Mozilla doesn't like five years ago.
Even though he has since, by the way, he apologized for his heresy.
Do you know that?
I forgot to mention.
He apologized for this heresy.
Didn't matter.
We have employees with a wide diversity of views.
Our culture of openness.
Who are you trying to kid?
Your culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public unless they happen to be at variance with gay activists, in which case they're not welcome here.
They don't say that, but that's obviously the case, because that's how we make sure they lose their jobs.
See?
We have employees with a wide diversity of views.
Our culture of openness extends to encouraging staff and community to share their beliefs and opinions in public so we can find out who we have to get rid of.
What happened to Brendan Icke, folks, is exactly why you need to care about what the IRS is attempting and has attempted to do with the Tea Party.
It's also, I'll tell you why the militant gay activists, they're delighted about this.
They just, I'm telling you, they're celebrated.
They're not worried that this is bad.
They're not feeling guilty conscience.
They're not.
Brendan Icke's not even a human being.
Not worried about the guy's lost a job.
How's he going to fetish family?
They don't care about that.
No, no, no.
They're excited, folks, because this sends a message to any and all corporations who might be crazy enough to donate to a conservative or conservative cause.
The message is, we will find you and we will punish you.
Boycotts, threats, what if Brendan Icke, what if he opposes gay marriage because of his religious views, hmm?
Or maybe his culture or his gender identity or sexual orientation, all these things that Mozilla's claiming to celebrate.
Here's Mike, Fort Worth, Texas, as we get to the phones in the first hour on Open Line Friday.
Hi, sir.
Hi, Rush.
How you doing?
Good.
Good, good, good.
Glad you called out there.
This morning I saw that report and I was so mad I could spit.
And I said, you know what, I'm going to, and I got on the radio and I heard you on there and I said, I'm going to call Rush and keep dialing until I can get through because I've had it with this.
I mean, these people, we need to turn the tables on them and we need to use their tactics and let's demonize them as the intolerance that they are.
Well, how are you going to do that?
Well, I mean, there's enough of us people out there that are starting to get tired of this stuff.
We need to start talking about who they are and see if they have businesses and what cut their businesses.
Yeah, and we need to stand to support Brendan Marshall.
There's something that some of these they may not be considering.
Some of these activists may not be considering here.
And it's something we'll never know, by the way.
But this is the kind of thing that can make employers say, you know what, I don't need this kind of hassle.
If this is what's going to happen to me, if I end up hiring a bunch of gay activists, I don't need this.
I just don't need it.
There could be a hiring backlash that nobody would ever even know exists because nobody's going to be public about it.
But if this is the kind of crap that's going to happen, every employee to be targeted by some other group of employees can't run a business this way.
Might want to stop and consider that possibility.
I wonder what would happen if Mozilla named as its next CEO a Muslim.