While Republicans are horrible people, even horrible people don't deserve lung cancer. Rush Limbaugh is a rare bastard who has done serious damage to this country, but I would much rather see him retired on some island somewhere than what's going to happen to him.

Heh, this bullshit with Lundgren's museum is just the sort of thing we have our council members for. Hello Ms. Sawant! How about you kick some bureaucrat ass?

Asinine: let's sabotage positive cultural developments in this city because of completely pointless red tape!

Yeah, let's be bigger people and not gloat when those on the other side get a devastating disease like lung cancer. I think Rush has done vast amounts of damage to this country, but no one deserves to suffer.

1,

Death is real. There are those who, while alive, pretend that it is not, as if this were some consolation. Others invest in some make believe beyond, or some justice that dispenses death in a manner consistent with the way we have lived. Poetic delusions, all.

Wishes too, are delusion. So is prayer. The universe is not just, it is rather indifferent. Death comes to those who have done good as well as those who do evil.

To quote Meursault in the book that gave this paper its name , “For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators on the day of my execution, and that they greet me with cries of hate.”

Do I wish death, by lung cancer or any other means, upon Limbaugh? No. I say that simply because there is no point in wishing for anything. However, now that the tumor has found him, I feel no remorse. I can hardly think of a better medium for cancer to grow inside of, than the organs that gave him voice.

In that at least, there is poetry.

@ 1,
Oh, please. Rusted Limpballs made a career out of callously denigrating and attacking others as a professional lying, racist troll. He enjoys harming others, and he always punches down. His sadistic cruelty and deranged stupidity inspires millions of pathetic, hateful, old white men to attempt to win the stupid loud mouth asshole olympics. He paved the way for Dictatorapist AntiChrist to lie and abuse this nation shamelessly.

The world would be a better place if he’d been aborted, and he deserves a long, agonizing death for the misery he’s spent a lifetime causing. He has zero redeeming qualities, and when’s he’s finally dead, god will do a jig.

7,

Did you enjoy it when he made fun of gay men dying of HIV on those same radio shows you listened to during your morning commute? Did you laugh at the dying, then, as you drove your car?

Thank you for explaining death to me, Wandering Star dear. I had no idea.....

9,

Deserve, not deserve, doesn’t matter. Whether you deserve it or not, it happens anyway.

And I don’t see the point in pretending that it does matter.

The people Limbaugh attacked didn’t deserve that, either. But, as you can see, the attacks are considered an art form by Rainy and many others.

You are not the center of the universe. You’re not even the point of this reply. The point is that Limbaugh is dying. And I feel no remorse, no pity. I can’t say that I feel much of anything at all.

Does he deserve it? Who cares?

Of course I'm not the center of the universe, dear. You took up that banner long ago.....

The topic, again, is not you. It’s Limbaugh’s impending doom.

Can you stay focused on the topic?

This is shaping up to be quite the entertaining thread. Also, fuck Rush Limbaugh.

How could I, Wandering Star dear? When you start to pontificate, I get lost in your self-importance.....

14,

I believe you opened the thread with your thoughts. Am I not allowed to have thoughts of my own?

Or is it that I am, but only if they agree with you?

Now I see why you lost in D3. The only point of view you’re willing to tolerate is your own. You’re so willing to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you, you didn’t even bother to notice that everyone else favored the other candidate.

Never trust your own internal polling, my dear.

Limbaugh deserves no quarter.

Wandering Star, I don’t live in district three. I have been a resident of district two since 1999, before districts even existed. The people of district three spoke, and I respect their decision. I think it was the wrong one, but it was their decision to make.

@7 Did you happen to enjoy him making fun of Michael J Fox's Parkinson's as well?

18,

Then why can’t you respect my decision about Limbaugh? I get tat you don’t agree with it, that in your mind he doesn’t deserve his disease and therefore warrants sympathy. I feel he doesn’t warrant sympathy. Judging by the comments of others on this thread and the previous threads, I’m not alone.

There are a lot of older gay men upon whom he wished death, whom he claimed deserved AIDS, and whom he taunted and laughed at. Those of us who survived have a right not to claim that he is deserving of sympathy. And it’s not for you to tell us that we are arrogant for taking that position.

I’m working out my own feelings on this news. And, given that I have a direct history of being one of the people this asshole made a career out of smearing, and you are not, I don’t accept your position that I am somehow arrogant for talking about my way through those complicated feelings.

@15

You are entitled to your opinion, and so is Catalina.
That's not the point.

Catalina was trying to be empathetic, it's the human thing to do.
You, on the other hand, chose to denigrate empathy. Interestingly enough that seems to be one of the problems you have with Rush Limbaugh.

It's okay to be frank, but try not to be a Dick.

I do have a quick question for you.
"And I don’t see the point in pretending that it does matter."
If none of this matters to you, why do you even have an opinion about it?
Why did you feel the need to share that opinion?

It seems to me that it does matter to you.

I always feel sorry for people who try to take on Catalina. It never goes well for them.

Oh now children, don't fight.
I think we can all agree that we wish Mr Limbaugh be spared from any undue suffering and that his impending demise come as swiftly as possible.

21,

You are like the guy who shows up at a funeral and then slams the mourners for being angry at the killer.

I’m not empathetic toward someone who made a life out of making life miserable for people I knew and loved, for myself, and for those of my community who survived. And to pretend that this is a unjustifiable position is arrogance in the supreme sense. Pure not god. You don’t get to decide who I have empathy for or whom I do not. And as far as saying it’s one of the problems with Limbaugh, I haven’t made a career out of tormenting him or his family or loved ones. Who the fuck are you to equivocate? its not quite the same, is it?

You don’t get to decide how other people feel. And it’s okay for people to express feelings other than yours. You can sing kumbaya all you want, but it’s not compulsory for everyone to join in with you.

Sorry for the typo. Spellcheck sucks. I meant to say, you are no god, not pure are not god.

You are not god.

@20

I was under the impression that Catalina was a gay man.
I'm not from Seattle, and I could be wrong, but I don't see how that matters.
Rush Limbaugh spent lots of time smearing women, so weather Catalina is a gay man or a woman they would also have been the subject of Rush Limbaugh's smears.

I'm sure you never thought of that, because it doesn't effect you.

Fuck Rush Limbaugh. I hope he suffers horribly and once he's dead I can make a pilgrimage to piss on his grave.

Fuck him.

@25

You can feel however you want.
I never said you couldn't.

What I did say is that your feelings show (and have shown many times before) that you are a self-centered ass hole.

Another question for you though?
Why is it okay for you to critique Catalina's opinion oh, but it's not acceptable for me to critique your opinion.

That sounds like hypocrisies to me.

@28

Please forgive the punctuation mistakes, I'm dictating this while on the crapper.

@25

Of course I'm not God.
There is no God.

I thought you knew that.

Funny. It’s always up to liberals to take the high road.

You know there are innumerable Limbaugh quotes where he literally gloats and cheers when a famous liberal was sick or dying, right? FI: He just couldn’t wait for RGB to die and never tired of baiting liberals into Tsk Tsk’ing him for it.

Any way. All I can say is: I can’t be all pretend reverent or, hahaha... sad.

Because it worked. I’ve wishing that obese pile of shit would die for decades. And I guess I found the right combination.

So some of you other shitbag trolls better watch out. Because I’ve got it dialed in.

If I actually ever thought about you more than five seconds.

“he will always be a spokesman of core values his audience related to long before Trump.”

What? You ARE a god damned moron.

He argued in favor of rape, dipshit. He used to go to Central America for underage sex tourism.

He was a degenerate pile of shit.

37,

I don’t have to accept shit.

Why would anyone, even a bureaucrat, contest a zoning ruling in order to prevent the opening of a museum?

39,

I’m an atheist, so I don’t pray for serenity or anything else. I also think cliches warrant the death penalty.

Let’s start a betting pool. If you get within a week of the correct date, you get 10% of the lot. Within a day, 20%. And the exact date gets you true remaining 40%. Any takers?

@35

"Funny. It’s always up to liberals to take the high road."

It seems to me that Liberals generally prefer to take the high road.
It's an integral part of the "bleeding heart liberal" trope that Limbaugh used to deride them for.
I wonder if he is still doing that now?

I'm certainly not sad to see that hypocritical bastard sign off for good, but it seems like a shame that he won't be around to see his "favorite president" get his ass handed to him come November.

Then again I wouldn't put it past trump to upstage ol' rush by having a massive coronary right before Limbaugh kicks the bucket.

Who knows.
Life is strange.

The Democrats couldn’t organize a fuck in a brothel. Why do we need their massive expansion of state authority?

The Iowa Cacas has descended into chaos this morning, and hopefully indicates the end of both the caucus system as well as Iowa’s first in the nation status. In one precinct, Bernie led with 100 votes, followed by Buttigieg with 66, and yet they declared this a tie. Now, four years ago Donna Brazille wrote a book that said the debates were rigged against Bernie. Here, we see something that looks an awful lot like a rigged system against Bernie in Iowa.

The establishment hates him so much that they’re willing to call a 34 point lead a tie.

44,

We should send him a link to @43. Dr Nelson can cute herpes, so maybe he can save Rush with a potpourri blend.

Scatalina? I love it! If I ever decide to dabble in jazz singing or scat porn (do NOT Google that), I'm all set! Thank you, Garb dear!

Sean Darling, bureaucrats do not contest zoning. They enforce it. What might have happened is that some "activist" in the "community" objected to it. It happens all the time with improvements to the public schools. There's a lot of crazies with too much time on their hands in Seattle, and city government encourages them.

And I'll just quietly murmur for Our Dear Dan from Davenport that the Iowa Republicans absolutely butchered their caucus back in 2016. It took them two weeks to figure out who won. Assuming that you actually are from Davenport, it's important for you to know that Iowa is a welfare state (i.e. you cost the nation more than you pay in) and that your very existence as a state is due to "massive expansion of state authority, starting with the Louisiana Purchase. Don't worry, when the robot farmers are implemented, you'll all be dealt with humanely.

48,

By Davenport, he means his couch. Dan was born on that couch. His mama’s water broke while watching One Life to Live, and even the pangs of labor could not cause her to peel her eyes away from the TV until the commercial break, when she found our Dan on the couch between her legs bawling his little lungs out. It took forever to clean that stain. The Davenport still smells a little. Anyway, Dan has so beloved the sofa of his birth that, since then, he has rarely left it.

It's after 10 a.m. and still no results from Iowa.

Did Bernie win big, or did grandpa Joe lose big enough to go home?

Hopefully both.

@48 When the republicans start calling for a massive welfare state you might have a point. At least true conservatives realize that the best kind of government is the government that governs the least.

51,

Really? Is that why W rammed TARP through the legislature and gave the big banks a massive welfare payout at taxpayer expense?

Oops, that was the 2012 GOP Caucus, not the 2016. Mrs. Vel-DuRay regrets the error.

@51

I call Shenanigans!

The only thing "conservatives" believe in is money in their pocket.

@52 TARP was paid back, with interest.

But I agree with your one point, the banks should’ve never been allowed to loan money to idiots with shitty credit. When I was a young man, you had to be interviewed to get a credit card, now they hand them out at Costco like candy you don’t even have to be a legal resident to get one.

Rock Island Roger, we already have two massive welfare states that the GOP has largely created, and certainly maintain: The military welfare state, and the 1% parasitical wealth state. Since 1980 we have arranged every element of our society to accommodate those two states.

Don't feel bad dear, it's hard for lackeys to grasp concepts like that. And if you are from Rock Island, you probably were exposed to a lot of PCB's as a child. That couldn't have helped.

55,

Capitalism is supposed to work like this: be responsible with your money, and if you fuck up, then suck it up, buttercup, nobody’s coming to bail you out. That’s what you tell people on the bottom of the economic ladder. But you bailed out the big banks and gave them the biggest fucking welfare check in history.

There is socialism in this country. You socialize the risk, and send the welfare payments to the 1%. This system is rigged against the working class, and TARP proved it. If you really believed in fiscal responsibility there would have been no bailouts at all. Let the banks fail if they fuck up. Those are the rules you impose on the poor, let’s see you apply those same rules to the rich, or you’re not the standard bearers against moral hazard you claim to be, you’re a bunch of crooks on the take, and you’re just using moral hazard as a fucking smokescreen,

If we administer an enema now, we might be able to bury Rush in a shoebox. That would save the taxpayers millions in funeral expenses, it would be true fiscal conservatism put into practice.

@55 Crooked banks with their huge interests, foreclosures, hidden accounts and laundering schemes who causes huge student debt should not exist. Idiot.

I really hate to mention Limbaugh- he and his listeners aren't even deserving of that, but it has to be said:

The man was not only a college drop out- but a life long science denier who repeatedly disputed the connections and causal links between tobacco smoke and cancer.

And was more than happy to waff cigar smoke at anyone else in the room.

“The only thing "conservatives" believe in is money in their pocket.”

Whose pocket should my money be in?

“ causes huge student debt should not exist”

Actually, the gubment guaranteeing your loan to study under water basket weaving is the problem. No risk to the banks. No risk to the university. Only to the tax payer. Stop guaranteeing loans to morons with shitty credit and even shittier employment prospectives.

We should also add this to the conversation above::

55 doesn't seem to grsp basic economics.

TARP was nowhere near paid back 'with interest' when we include opportunity costs and moral hazard as variables in the equation.

@56 & 57

It's not the 1%, it's the top 20%.

"One half, 49.98%, of all income in the US was earned by households with an income over $100,000, the top twenty percent. Over one quarter, 28.5%, of all income was earned by the top 8%, those households earning more than $150,000 a year. The top 3.65%, with incomes over $200,000, earned 17.5%."

TL;DR
The richest 20% "earn" 50%

The U.S. median household income was $63,179 in 2018, not statistically different than the previous year, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released today.Sep 10, 2019

$64,000 a year is the real middle class
But the media characterizes the top 20% (income around $120,000) as "Middle Class".

The only way to beat Trump is to address the issues of the 80% of Americans that have to live off 50% of the resources.

@61

How exactly is it "your" money?
How did you "earn" it?
Did you earn it?

61,

Student loans should not exist at all. Rather, the academy should be a commons. It could be, if universities receiving state funding didn’t insist on building extravagant buildings. Arizona State advertises, of all things, sun decks in the dormitories on the brochure they hand out to prospective students. What do sun decks have to do with learning?

Using primary texts instead of expensive textbooks, classrooms designed to facilitate communication between students and faculty, and less on showcasing architecture, returning college sports to the status of extracurricular activity rather than a means for jocks to earn degrees without cracking a book, and keeping campuses small with decent faculty to student ratios i# a more responsible use of funds that could drive tuition costs down. Make all universities property of the state in which their campus is based and run them as a public good based on building a local brain trust. End grade inflation and legacy admissions, so anyone can get in, but to stay in you have you bust your ass. Make failure a real possibility in the first semester. Students returning in the spring to classes half the size of the fall semester will feel enough motivation from that alone to take their remaining time in college seriously enough to put down the booze and pick up a book.

We don’t need sun decks, we don’t need massive stadia. We need to give everyone the opportunity to succeed, but not a guarantee of success based on athletics or family connections.

I know doctors have a hippocratic oath but I'm pretty sure more harm would be done by treating rush, so it's kind of a catch 22.

66,

Don’t worry, advanced lung cancer is a death sentence. There’s no way out. The treatments are designed to reduce suffering, not to save him.

@39 If you are trying to convince anyone you are a spiritual person by your use of acceptance you are drastically failing.

Are you a banker or maybe your real name is Jeff Bezos? You want the rest of us to accept a corrupt and debased system that benefits the likes of you. No way.

Everything you comment on is completely self serving to your obvious class privilege. You lack any compassion for people that are run over by your demented politics. Its your kind that keep this oppression going. You wouldn’t last a day if you had to survive like many of us do. I would not have enough to eat if it were not for my friends. I worked for approximately over 50 years in this economic system and trying to live on social security as I am old is living well below the poverty level. I now have a cancer and each day I fight it.

Yet I am luckier than many because I have a roof over my head and a warm place to live in. It may take a while but your defeat is in the works and that will be a great blessing for the rest us in the working class.

@67 Nah, ain’t gonna happen. The People are too busy watching Dancing with the Stars to realize the revolution won’t be televised or happen. Your “revolution” is led by too many lazy coffee shop intellectuals posting Jacobin articles to their Facebook pages from their iPhones.

69,

Wat you don’t know is, the revolution is being funded by Dr Nelson Sailu’s potpourri cures for herpes. @70 is the engine of the communist takeover. We will achieve victory through floral bouquets in a teacup, comrades! To the barricades, where we will at long last overthrow that burning sensation when we pee!

The first friend I made over the intent was a guy named Charles Adam Keuther. We built a MUD together. He was about 20 years older then me. I'd regularly tell him to quit smoking, and finally in March of 2006 he did. He told me once thing he didn't expect is that quitting was painful. A month later, he disappeared, and another month later his sister emailed me to tell me what happened: he was diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. The first surgery to attempt to remove it left him paralyzed from the chest down and apparently more was necessary. Within a day of awaking from surgery, he pulled out all his stents and his breathing tube and suffocated to death. I hadn't thought about him for a while.

72,

It’s a hideous way to die. So was HIV back before there were drugs to cure it. I remember seeing my first boyfriend, the guy I feel deeply in love with, waste way to a toothpick within a matter of months. And I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio making fun of guys like us.

Do you k ow what a death rattle sounds like? The last breath you’ll ever take. It sounds like your lungs are whispering “ruuuuussssshhhhh”

74,

Fuck you, you killed my boyfriend. This is personal. I don’t pretend to be the leader of all anybody. I claim to be me, a guy that lost the love of his life while you spat in his face. And if you’re gonna say, so what if he did, then I got full right to spit in his face as he dies, too.

You really can spell "flush" without "Rush", but why on Earth would you?

Everything is funny until it happens to you.

-- Dave Chapelle

@75 homie, you're talking to people.

74,

https://books.google.com/books?id=ykKOgDxEClgC&pg=PT156&dq=limbaugh+chafez+army+of+one&hl=en&ei=oxw2TfvBC8OC8gbe3piMCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAw#v=snippet&q=aids%20update&f=false

Now, maybe you turned a deaf ear to this crap, but I heard it on the same goddamn radio you did, and I didn’t choose to forget it. Nor will I forget how your beloved saint Ronnie Reagan’s press secretary made fun of the dying on TV, or how you allowed 100,000 gay men to die the same way my boyfriend did.

His name was Cary Wilson. We lived in Arlington, Virginia together in 1991-1992, until he died. And fuck you, fuck your whole goddamn amnesia, fuck your indifference to human suffering and refusal to fund the CDC when we needed the meds to keep people like him alive.

Maybe you e got Alzheimer’s and it’s caused you to forget. I never will. And I hope to god Limbaugh’s death is as slow and hideous and painful as Cary’s was. I’ve got no pity for him, for you, for any of the bastards who let my boyfriend die. This isn’t a movement. This isn’t political. This is my fucking boyfriend you piece of shit. We were a party, alright, a party of two, two very happy people in love. And you took him away from me you son of a bitch.

I don’t believe in god, but I hope there is a hell, and every one of you bastards burns for that.

You certainly can spell "flush" without "Rush", but why on Earth would you?

The "man" was an abomination, the so-called intellectual author of so much of what is wrong with our country today. I shed no tears for the likes of him, and i hope it takes him a long, long time to finally go out (insert Godwin's Law here).

@80 You seem nice.

83,

No, you didn’t read the entire highlighted segment. The segment also discusses a weekly feature on Limbaugh’s broadcast called “AIDS Update” here he made fun of guys with the disease.

I met Cary at a pride march in DC. It was the first time I had ever been to one. I had told my friend Connie that I was gay. She’s the first person I told. Connie told me she knew gay guys and it was no big deal, and asked me if I wanted to go to Pride with one of them.

Connie’s friend picked me up and drove me to the Vienna metro station. We boarded a packed, standing room only train where I lost track of him. I remember someone on the train distributed little photocopied slips of paper with song lyrics. It was set to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and the chorus went like this:
“ Glory, glory I’m a gay man
Glory, glory I’m a lesbian
Glory, glory I’m a homosexual
I am truth marching on”

It’s weird, but I found belting the lyrics exhilarating. It was the first time anyone in my life had used the term gay to imply the positive as opposed to a negative.

I got off at DuPont Circle, and there was this huge escalator going up to the street. I usually hated riding those, because I have a fear of heights and I always got a little dizzy riding those escalators, anyway, I got to the sidewalk level, and as soon as I set foot onto the concrete, a voice next to me said, “You’re cute”, and a handsome young man my own age planted his lips on mine for a kiss. I felt like I was high, even if I was stone cold sober.

Well, there were so many people there. It was unbelievable. I felt a little hokey, dressed in my tie-dye t-shirt and with long hair, I really didn’t look like I belonged. Next to me appeared this tall, older guy who asked me my name, and handed me a matchbook with his name written on the inside cover and a phone number.

I went home afterwards and called, and he asked me if I wanted to go on a date. We went to the Pop Stop, a little sidewalk cafe in DuPont Circle, and then to a restaurant. He knew I had never had any exposure to gay li&e before, so he didn’t try to push me into anything. As we sat outside watching the guys walk by, he told me he knew he was older, and (in his words) not very attractive- I felt otherwise- he just wanted me to see what was on the menu. I told him I had already decided who I want.

He liked ZZ Top and drove a pickup truck, but he was tall, slim, dressed nicely and clean cut and had beautiful eyes. He told me he was poz when we met, and said he’d understand if I wasn’t interested. We agreed to play safe, so I didn’t really care about his status. A few months later, he asked me to move in with him.

And we were very happy together. He was the first love I had in my life. And he taught me how to love myself. I miss him.

And yeah, you took that away from me. I’m never gonna forget that.

To you, Cary Wilson was just one of a hundred thousand other anonymous guys. I wonder sometimes if you even think of the AIDS crisis as real. Maybe you think we all just made it up. You know, the way neo-Nazis say the Holocaust was made up. You always circle the wagons at any criticism, you never have been able to admit to having fucked up.

It’s all one big conspiracy the Left made up to smear St Ronnie.

Well, to me, he wasn’t a number. He was Cary Wilson. And there’s not a day that goes by when I don’t wish he was still here with me.

Shorter@81, and many more besides: don't bring crystals to a gun fight

Well it's not like they didn't know by 1983 both the source of infection and how to prevent it. I saw that big ol' virus on the cover on Time Magazine and changed my behavior. Others did not. Not Reagan's fault.

90,

That wasn’t a question. It was a statement, and an imperative.

90,

And @91 sort of proves my point.i know he’s an anonymous troll who opens multiple accounts every time he posts, usually with a username that matches the theme of the post, but he’s also consistent in supporting only your side. To me, he represents your raw id, the drives the anti-gay right express in their all too often murderous hatred of gay men. You are more careful in your presentation, and he is what you look like when the mask slips.

Limbaugh attacked Cary. Not personally, he had as far as I know never met Cary and probably has no idea he ever existed. But he referred to people like him, like us, in his radio program, and I had to listen to that every day at work. I’m not going to forget it. Nor am I going to forget the policies that lead to Cary’s death, endorsed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton was no saint either, I remember how he had his staff wear rubber gloves when he invited a group of gay men and lesbians to visit the White House.

I’m not a fan of Clintons or Bushes, I wish Reagan had never gotten elected to public office to begin with and just stayed in the movie biz. Limbaugh’s attacks on gay men, especially during the era when I was a kid and later when me and Cary we’re together, will not be forgotten. I wish everyone from that era from both parties would just go away. I was raised by Reagan Republicans, my parents were not some pair of Birkenstock wearing hippie college profs. What pushed me into the Left was you.

Had AIDS not happened, had the GOP not been so vitriolic in its hatred of me and my friends and lovers, I probably wouldn’t have been interested in politics at all. I don’t think I’d have even bothered to vote. I wish I had the luxury of being able to not care. You created me. I resent you, because of what you did to me. And I’m not the leader of some margined group of gay men who lost someone to AIDS as you described me, and I’m not some intellectual. I’m just me.