Limbaugh Arrested in Fla. on Drug Charges

[richyoung]

lets put this in perspective - 2,000 pills in about 200 days - that's ten pills a day - (IF he tok them all).  If a dose is two pills, that's only five doses a day - high,  but not out of the relm of possibility.  I was prescribed 7.5 mg loritabs for pain with my broken ankle - I was going through 30 in less than a week, with me TRYING to use as few as possible - (and I have a pretty high pain threshold...).  I can't condemn the main for taking twice as many pills I needed - maybe he needed them.  Lot different than jacking people at the ATM to buy crack...

[Guest]

I don't care how many he took. He broke drug laws. He preaches stringing up drug abusers. Hasn't he been eaten by aligators yet??? What a dangerous fiend! I hope someone throws a pie in his face.

[richyoung]

I don't care how many he took. He broke drug laws.

I'm sorry  - I didn't know you had a law degree AND worked for the DA that cahrged him UNSUCCESSFULLY.  WHAT drug laws did HE, (as opposed to his physicians, perhaps...) break, and if he did, WHY wasn't he taken to trial by an obvoiously politicised and publicity hungry D.A.?

He preaches stringing up drug abusers. Hasn't he been eaten by aligators yet??? What a dangerous fiend! I hope someone throws a pie in his face.

He is right - there are only two options, either out-right prohibition for ILLEGAL drugs, (the option he supports), or complete legalization.  What we have now is the fact that rich people, minority politicians, and most white people, can get away with it without jail time, whereas poor people, and non-politician minorities go into an increasingly privatized jail system.  What we do now is unsuistainable in the long run.  Again, I want you to tell me what ILLEGAL drug he took, as opposed to MULTIPLE incidents involving cocaine and the Kennedy family, for example...

[Ron]

He preaches stringing up drug abusers. Hasn't he been eaten by aligators yet??? What a dangerous fiend! I hope someone throws a pie in his face.

One quote in all his years on the air is all ya got mercedesrules. He wasn't a drug warrior by any stretch.

And as has been mentioned, he pleaded not guilty to doctor shopping. No evidence was obviously found, he is a big fish and they would have hung him if they could.

As far as the government is concerned he is NOT GUILTY.

[Perd Hapley]

I don't care how many he took. He broke drug laws. He preaches stringing up drug abusers. Hasn't he been eaten by aligators yet??? What a dangerous fiend! I hope someone throws a pie in his face.

I heard what your lips just uttered, and I'm wondering what drugs you're on.  

Where did Rush call for stringing up drug abusers?  

GoRon, do you mean the quotation in the article?  Comfused.

[Ron]

Where did Rush call for stringing up drug abusers?

GoRon, do you mean the quotation in the article?  Comfused.

The media keeps bringing up the same one or two quotes to show what a hypocrite Rush is. In all the years he has been on the air they have one or two anti drug references and that makes him a hypocrite?

[Gewehr98]

Did anybody notice...

That while he wasn't found guilty, and paid the DA $30K to go away, he also forfeited his gun-owning rights?

Hmmm...

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060502/NEWS06/605020435/1012

Limbaugh, prosecutors sign deal to end case

West Palm Beach, Fla. -- Rush Limbaugh declared victory Monday after signing a deal with prosecutors that will dismiss a prescription fraud charge in 18 months if he complies with its terms.
   
Under the deal, Limbaugh cannot own a gun, must submit to random drug tests and has to continue treatment for his acknowledged addiction to painkillers. But he did not have to admit guilt, and he continued to proclaim his innocence on his radio show.

The 55-year-old conservative commentator pleaded not guilty Friday to seeking a prescription from a physician in 2003 without revealing that he had received medications from another practitioner within 30 days.

So if he's not guilty, why can't he have guns?

[Ron]

So if he's not guilty, why can't he have guns?

Because he admitted to being addicted to narcotics.

[Gewehr98]

Aye, there's the rub.

He admitted to doing something that took away his gun-owning rights, but he's technically not guilty.  Subjective enforcement, if ever there was, because technically he'd be a felon in possession of firearms otherwise, no?  Kinda like those ex-post facto misdemeanor domestic violence rulings (Lautenberg) that took guns away from people long after the fact.

[Ron]

Being addicted to prescription pain killers isn't illegal (I don't think), doctor shopping is illegal.

The DA wasn't after him for being addicted he was after him for the doctor shopping.

Guilty of becoming dependent on pain meds, not guilty of doctor shopping.

[Perd Hapley]

Isn't the gun clause there to insure that he doesn't have a Dick Cheney, or something worse?  Doesn't it have to do with the danger that he might be high and armed?  If it were a felony-related thing, would he not also lose his right to vote?  He mentioned it on the show, but didn't say if it was temporary or why it had occurred.  

He also said he doesn't have guns and "I don't need one where I live."

[publius]

I'd never agree to pay court costs, much less give up the right to own guns, if I felt there was no case against me.

[richyoung]

Rush can HIRE security/bodyguards - its purely a money thing.  Cheaper to settle now and live with restrictions (that really don't affect him much) for 18 months than to keep paying his lawyer to fight it.  $30,000 at $500 an hour buys you a whopping week & a half of lawyering, whereas the DA & his assistants can drag it out for YEARS, as they are funded by the taxpayer.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Limbaugh made a HUGE donation to some cancer charities just a few hours before walking in to do the court-deal thingie.  After cutting a multi-million dollar check to charity, do you think he even noticed the 30 grand of nuisance money he spent to make DA go away?

It reeks of a shakedown, but even so I'd say it was money well-spent.  I'd have done the same thing (assuming I was filthy rich and could afford to).

[Perd Hapley]

HTG, he said it was under a million.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

I read an article about it, the number I remember was $15 million, I think.  But I could be mistaken.  

Hmm...  trying to find that article again...  not so easy to find, what with all them other hatchet job pieces about Limbaughbeing arrested for drug abuse (sic)....  

Yup, you're right, Limbaugh's personal contribution was *only* $250,000.  Which is still enough money to dwarf the fee he paid to the DA.  That $15 million number I remembered was the total amount that Limbaugh has raised over the years.

Sorry for the error, folks.