Conservative radio show talker and notable demonizer, conspiracy-theory spreader Rush Limbaugh has literally refused to put his money where his mouth is. After claiming Hurricane Irma was a liberal conspiracy to make climate change look real, Limbaugh is evacuating South Florida, and claiming that it’s due to legal concerns — not to save his own Guinness Book of Records sized posterior.

But on the show Thursday, Limbaugh said he would be off the air for the next few days.

“May as well… announce this. 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 said the show will be back on the air Monday, but to be on the air Friday would be “legally impossible” for them do to the show out of South Florida.

Limbaugh did not recant his earlier statements about Irma, and he did not encourage his listeners in the area to evacuate. In fact, Limbaugh seemed to even double down on his earlier views.

“The views expressed by the host of this program [are] documented to be almost always right 99.8 percent of the time,” Limbaugh said right before announcing he would be leaving South Florida for parts unknown. “There is a reason for that because we engage in a relentless and unstoppable pursuit of the truth and we find and proclaim it and that happens to drive people crazy.”

The latter declaration is of course, fake news…

Limbaugh’s hypocrisy in a)first literally putting lives at risk by telling gullible listeners to pooh-pooh the potentially catastrophic hurricane and b)then in effect fleeing the storm’s path was not lost on many in the media (you need to excluse Fox News’ Sean Hackety from that group):

Mother Jones:

With his comments mocking Hurricane Irma as a liberal conspiracy theory still fresh, radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday appeared to surrender to reality, informing listeners that his program would no longer be able to air from his studio’s Palm Beach location, which is currently in Irma’s direct path.

“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 in a segment recorded by ThinkProgress. “That will be in the hands of Mark Stein tomorrow. We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown.”

“It’s just that tomorrow is going to be… problematic. Legally impossible.”

Limbaugh never directly mentioned the hurricane or Irma by name, instead telling listeners he was forced to cancel a slew of planned activities this weekend. “Now that’s all blown to smithereens,” he said.

The Daily Mail:

Rush Limbaugh closed out his popular radio program on Thursday by announcing he would be off the air on Friday and broadcasting next week from ‘parts unknown’ as he and other residents of Palm Beach were ordered to evacuate before Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida.
That announcement came just two days after Limbaugh delivered a dismissive diatribe in which he downplayed the threat of the then-Category 5 storm, stating that reporting on the natural disaster had become ‘politicized’ and was being used to advance the notion the climate change is real.
His Friday program was hosted by Mark Steyn.

The Washington Post:

I wrote on Wednesday about Rush Limbaugh’s claim that the media is manufacturing unwarranted panic about Hurricane Irma as part of a plot to hype climate change, boost ratings and increase advertising revenue from businesses that stand to make money off purchases of batteries and bottled water.

Limbaugh then accused The Washington Post and other news outlets of twisting his words while simultaneously doubling down on his conspiracy theory on Thursday.

“I explained how severe weather events are opportunities for big ratings boosts in the media and explained how it happens,” he said. “I explained how severe weather events impact retailers and how some retailers are smart enough to coordinate advertising with television stations. It happens!”

Limbaugh said something else on Thursday: He indicated he is evacuating his Palm Beach mansion, from which he broadcasts daily, for “parts unknown.”

“May as well go ahead and announce this,” he said. “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. … We’ll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown. So we’ll be back on Monday. It’s just that tomorrow is going to be problematic. Tomorrow it would be, I think, legally impossible for us to originate the program out of here.”

Limbaugh presented the departure as more of an inconvenience than a proper response to imminent danger.

Meanwhile, on Twitter:

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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