Some of you may know that Rush Limbaugh, king of all self-appointed windbags, is a drug addict. He was forced to admit that to his wide-eared listeners when it became clear that his drug dealer and former housekeeper had
become unhappy with the Limbaugh:
That's when Wilma Cline started keeping a log of her deliveries and preserved desperate e-mails from Limbaugh in which he referred to pills as "small blue babies."
Wilma Cline said she would meet Limbaugh in parking lots, passing a cigar box filled with pills through his Mercedes' window.
During her two last drug deliveries, Wilma Cline told The Enquirer, she secretly audiotaped the transactions.
More down there.
When it became clear that Parking Lot Wilma and the Small Blue Babies (take it away, Dave Barry...), which, incidentally, would be a great name for a rock band (thank you, Dave Barry), would be
soon be making his gargantuan illegal ingestion of illegal drugs public, the deeply moral and law-abiding Limbaugh saw it as his civic duty to
admit he was a drug addict and go to a posh rehab center in order to make him look more sympathetic for his obviously-upcoming legal troubles.
Then he started fighting prosecutors who wanted to see his medical records because it had come to their attention that Limbaugh had been "doctor shopping"--going to different doctors to get multiple prescriptions of drugs, which is illegal. Rush railed against the prosecutor's attempts to seize his medical records.
But the question is this: Why would any of us want such records made public, even if they prove our innocence? It's not up to me to prove my innocence by giving up my right to privacy. I have to give up my right to privacy now in order for the state who is, in effect, just casting a line out there, hoping to hook something [Editor's note: Data mining?]. They've got to invade my privacy to do this.
Oh, Rush.
Oh fuck it.
You know where I'm going: Imagine if the asshole had been busted because he'd been wiretapped by the FBI--without a warrant--ordering a cigar box full of "small blue babies." Or even if he'd been wiretapped calling four different doctors to get the prescriptions filled. Would he, would Chris Matthews and the countless messenger kids of the Far Right be defending the use of warrantless wiretaps? The answer is obviously "no," and the fuckheads have to have their hypocritical asses thrown into the spotlight.
This bullshit has to be argued more effectively. We are losing this argument and we should not be. Why everyone should be pissed at this is fucking obvious. Here's just a few things I've discussed on a telephone at some point in my life, things, for obvious reasons, I expected and expect to be between myself and the person on the other end of the phone, and nobody fucking else. Hopefully they jog your memory of some things you've discussed that you hope were not listened to by somebody at the NSA:
Things I've Discussed On a Telephone, by Me
- A sexually transmitted disease
- Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. How to buy them in parking lots. How to order them from more than one doctor at a time. How to buy drugs and get your house cleaned in one easy phone call. Okay, I'm kidding about this one
- Drugs
- Love. Private, terrifying L*O*V*E. Unabashed, throat in my balls, eyes full of oceans, wings on my back devotion to lovers, parents, siblings, old, old friends, strangers at 3 a.m., Armando, etc.
- An addiction to an addiction hotline
- Terminal cancer. Fucking tumors that kept coming back no matter how many surgeries. Conversations so private, so secretly made in an unspoken pact that was a sacred haven which allowed the most painful and beautiful and liberating truths to be revealed; words spoken by her and me when death was obviously coming. Our words. Nobody else's. Ever.
- Other things I can't fucking think of right now because I'm pissed off
Got a few things you've discussed that might jog Republican memories about why they wouldn't want their phones tapped? Please tell us.