Rush Limbaugh, the far-right blowhard radio personality, is evacuating his home in Palm Beach, Florida, just days implying the panic and intense coverage of Hurricane Irma was part of a liberal agenda to advance the idea that climate change is man-made.
“May as well… announce this,” Limbaugh said on his show on Thursday. “I’m not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow,” Limbaugh said Thursday. “We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.”
Limbaugh then added that it would be “legally impossible” to host the program in Palm Beach, but did not elaborate on what exactly that meant. State officials ordered mandatory evacuations for residents of certain areas of Palm Beach on Thursday.
Earlier in the week, Limbaugh essentially accused the media of hyping up Hurricane Irma as a way to boost ratings and because the media has a “symbiotic relationship” with retailers who profit from people buying supplies in advance of storms.
“The TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase,” Limbaugh said on his nationally-syndicated show. “And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media.”
The radio host has a history thinking hurricanes are a liberal conspiracy, and his Irma theory didn’t end there. According to Limbaugh, the hype is also a way to get people to believe in man-made climate change, which is considered a fact by an overwhelming majority of climate scientists.
“There is a desire to advance this climate change agenda, and hurricanes are one of the fastest and best ways to do it. You can accomplish a lot just by creating fear and panic,” Limbaugh reportedly said Tuesday. “You don’t need a hurricane to hit anywhere. All you need is to create the fear and panic accompanied by talk that climate change is causing hurricanes to become more frequent and bigger and more dangerous, and you create the panic, and it’s mission accomplished, agenda advanced.”
Apparently, the hype even got to Limbaugh—since he won’t be broadcasting from Palm Beach, as he normally does.
H/T Think Progress
