RUSH: The story about the FCC monitoring is back. “FCC Backs Off Newsroom Study.” You know, there are two things happening with this. A, they never back off anything. They just set it aside for a while where they can bring it back when nobody’s looking. When they propose something like this that gets a lot of pushback, then they shelve it, and they bring it back at a time when nobody will know it’s happening, or when they think there won’t be any pushback.

And the way they’re trying to mask this is, “Wait a minute. You all are misunderstanding this. This was not about monitors in newsrooms for content. If you go back and look at what The Steak was actually saying, ‘Filet’ Mignon Clyburn, she really is concerned about minority ownership. That’s all this was.” Right. The questions about story selection and why and why not has to do with minority ownership.

It’s not about minority ownership at all. The thing, again, that is really cockamamie about this is the media’s already thrown in the towel. Monitors are not needed, folks. There are no monitors needed in most of the newsrooms in this country. Television, newspaper, radio, most of the places monitors are not needed. The media has already chosen sides. The media’s all-in already. The media has given up any pretense of accountability.

The media has chosen the narrative that they wish to support every day. They are all-in for the agenda. These monitors aren’t needed. The guidance isn’t needed. The media is very predictable. You get a Democrat administration, you’re gonna get a media which promotes it and attacks its critics and makes excuses for it. Whatever it has to do to advance the agenda.

You get a Republican and you’re gonna have nothing but constant accountability, constant lies, constant misrepresentation, constant pounding — and everything is gonna happen to make sure the American people hate and despite whoever the American president might happen to be. That’s the game. That’s already happened. You know it as well as I do. That’s why I get frustrated.

I admit it to you when I get phone calls here, “Rush, somehow we gotta get the media.” The media’s gone, folks. It’s not even the media anymore. There is no news. I know I’m sounding broken record on this. But there is no news media, per se.

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RUSH: Politico has a story on this FCC backing off the idea of having newsroom monitors from the Regime. Right here it is. They say, look, it was never what all the critics said. It was just a market study to find out “how and if the media is meeting the public’s ‘critical information needs’ on subjects like public health, politics, transportation and the environment,” and to encourage minority ownership.

Look, I’m gonna keep looking for ways, different ways to make the point. I mean, it’s one thing to say the media is not about reporting news, anymore, that they just exist for the advancement of the liberal agenda. If you look at any Sunday morning show, with that framework in mind, and you’ll see what I’m talk about.

But there are other ways of explaining this as well, and I’m going to be exploring those in an attempt to be persuasive. But you could say they’ve chosen the narrative and they’re all-in, folks. There’s no doubt. I don’t think there’s even any pretense at being “The Media” anymore, and there’s no question that there’s still a couple places where if they could get some monitors in there to intimidate people, they would put them in there.

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RUSH: Let me try it this way. I’m chomping at the bit here to come up with a way to explain this in addition to what I said. There’s nothing wrong with telling you there is no news anymore, that there’s nothing left but the advancement of the agenda. That was perfectly clear, I understand that, but there’s something more to it. You remember when this thing was first announced? You remember last week when it was first announced that the Regime wanted to put monitors in the newsrooms?

The FCC, that’s the Regime, wanted to put monitors in the newsroom. I read the questions to you. They were gonna examine what stories were reported, what stories weren’t. They were gonna want to know why certain stories were reported and others weren’t. It went on and on and on — and do you remember, I made the point that there was no outrage from the mainstream media. There was none.

Not only was there no outrage. I predicted it. If you’ll also recall, Snerdley came in and when I told him about it, he said, “This is it. This is the last straw. You’re gonna see these people erupt,” and I said, “No, you’re not. They are not gonna erupt. In fact, they are already doing it. There’s already supportive. They’re not gonna be upset at all,” and I gave ’em a couple reasons why. The First Amendment grants “freedom,” by the use of that very word, to the press.

Free speech. Free press.

They have given up their freedom, is the point. They have tossed it away. They’ve chosen something other than a free press. They have chosen sides. In fact, they didn’t even have to choose. It’s just who they are. You would probably be surprised to learn of the marriages that exist between people in the media and people in government, people in media and people in elective office, or at various cabinet bureaucracies or wherever.

I mean, it’s quite an incestuous revolving door. But the media is not really engaging in a free press — and even when there’s a Republican president, what they’re doing is not exercising freedom of the press. They are in the process of protecting the agenda at that point. When you’ve got a Democrat in office, it’s advance the agenda — and, of course, cream and attack the opposition.

When the opposition happens to overpower you and win the presidency, then it becomes time to protect the agenda and to trash and destroy the people who are in power, and that’s the only time they will do it. It’s been that way for quite a while. As such, if the press… The Founding Fathers were brilliant people. They knew that a free and independent press was crucial to a representative republic remaining free.

Once the media becomes state-run or state-controlled, the Founding Fathers knew what the various levels of intellect and intelligence were among the population, paying attention. They knew how important it was. We’re reaping the benefits… Well, not the benefits. We’re seeing the results here of what happens when a free press isn’t free. Susan Rice, I guess, is good example yesterday.

Susan Rice, in a normal political world, would have been embarrassed and ashamed to show up, after having previously appeared on five Sunday morning shows and lying repeatedly about Benghazi and the reasons for it and what happened. But instead, what happened? She shows up and she’s celebrated! She shows up and she’s applauded. She shows up on these Sunday morning shows and is regaled as a conquering warrior.

Because what really happened was they brought Susan Rice back, and the media joined in an on-air celebration of her survival against attempts by the opposition to get rid of her, or to humiliate her or to diminish her. She survived. The Regime survived. The narrative on Benghazi survived. “Let’s bring Susan Rice back and we’ll have an on-air celebration that is disguised as a Sunday morning news show,” and that’s what it was.

They’ve surrendered their freedom, just like a lot of people have. You’ve heard the old stories. Benjamin Franklin, I think, was the one who warned of it. Be very worried about people who will surrender a little of their freedom for a little security here, surrender a more freedom for a little security there, because after a while you’re not gonna have any freedom anywhere.

Well, they’ve surrendered it, and the reason they’ve surrendered it is because they have been made to believe that they are ranking members of the elite. Their assignments happen to be as journalists. Others are assigned to be in elective office. Others are assigned positions in the bureaucracy. Others are assigned positions of professor at institutions of higher learning. Others are assigned positions of community organizer.

There is no independent media, certainly not in Washington. But I’ll give you example. Algore. Here we are in the midst of record cold, record ice at the North and South Poles, record ice in the Great Lakes. I just saw a satellite photo of the nearly totally frozen Great Lakes. I think Lake Michigan is the only one that has a little free-flowing water on the surface. It’s an amazing picture. So Algore goes to Kansas City over the weekend.

The Kansas City Star does a news story on Gore coming in, and there’s not one syllable of skepticism of Algore’s message in this report. Algore walked into Kansas City’s Crown Center Hotel there, a big ballroom. I’ve been there many times. He predicted that the Dust Bowl is on the verge of returning, and the Kansas City Star dutifully reported that the Dust Bowl is gonna soon be returning!

The Dust Bowl of the thirties, by the way, devastated Kansas. It was a very hot, and it was a very dry summer. There’s only one problem. What caused the Dust Bowl 80 years ago? There weren’t any SUVs, so it couldn’t have been CO2 buildup, because that wasn’t an issue back then. So what caused the Dust Bowl? What was man doing 80 years ago that caused the Dust Bowl?

Whatever it is, we’re still doing it. Algore marched into Kansas City to predict that the Dust Bowl is about to return. Here’s how it begins: “Al Gore has been known for his climate change warnings since the 2006 film ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ But the former vice president, speaking Saturday in Kansas City, cited many more recent examples how heavy use of fossil fuels is contributing to extreme weather events and trends, in his view.

“Gore filled a Westin Crown Center ballroom with a 90-minute presentation, using photos and videos to illustrate a litany of floods, wildfires, torrential rains, droughts, dust storms, rising sea levels and increasing world temperatures. To those attending the Folk Alliance International conference, he noted examples of flooding in locations both remote and closer to home, such as in Manitou Springs, Colo. …

“He cited the possibility of how flooding in Pakistan could destabilize that country, a nuclear power, and the possible effect that continuing drought in California might have on the world’s food supply.” He didn’t mention that the drought in California is manmade, not caused by global warming but by water policy.

The drought in the California Central Valley has been caused not only by the US Fish and Wildlife Service but state environmental agencies who are diverting water from agriculture to what are said to be endangered species. It isn’t new, but as a result there is a drought, not because of global warming or manmade climate change, but rather manmade decisions on the distribution of water.

Anyway, it goes on. The Kansas City Star dutifully reports everything. There’s not one word of skepticism. There’s not any challenge. There’s not even any doubt about it — and this is what I mean. So people in Kansas City are not clued in. They get up, read the Kansas City Star on Sunday, hear about Gore’s message, and now sitting there worried, scared to death — in the middle of a frozen tundra — about the returning Dust Bowl.

They’ve given up their freedom as a constitutional entity and instead have chosen acceptance by the elites as a fellow member of the club.

That’s essentially what’s happened here.

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RUSH: Here’s Rick in South Bend, Indiana, as we head back to the phones. Rick, welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Thank you. Hey, Rush, I’ve been listening to you for a long time, before the Clintons came in. But I was going back to your thing on the FCC where they’re trying to monitor the content of what everybody’s saying. I would like to see ’em, like, before every show, people come on, that they would do what you do when you say your accuracy rating is 99.7%.

RUSH: Well, that’s an opinion audit, which is a much different thing than an accuracy rating. But I get your drift. You think they ought to be subject to the same thing.

CALLER: Yeah, I think person that comes on and has a news show should say that, you know, so people know exactly where they stand.

RUSH: They wouldn’t dare. Rick, let me tell you something. This is not an exaggeration. One of the traits now, just short of being a hallmark, is how much the so-called mainstream media get wrong. It’s incredible how much they report that actually is wrong. It’s almost become standard operating procedure, and it’s because they’ve thrown objectivity overboard. To be objective… Evan Sayet, conservative lecturer, made the point: To be objective is to be a bigot, and they’ve thrown it away.