Quote:

---

Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter facing blowback on Hurricane Irma comments

From one year ago. Limbaugh is of course reprising his idiocy for Flo.

Mike Snider, USA TODAYPublished 8:37 p.m. ET Sept. 12, 2017 | Updated 9:21 a.m. ET Sept. 13, 2017

Limbaugh's position is reflective of a "right-wing orthodoxy, which favors doing nothing in response to climate change on the theory it’s all an expensive boondoggle designed to victimize innocent oil and gas companies," said Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., a Pulitzer Prize winner, in a Sept. 9 column.

Also part of the Republican strategy on climate change, he noted, is President Trump's exit from the Paris climate accord and Florida Gov. Rick Scott "forbidding his team to even use the term 'climate change'," Pitts said.

After charging liberals with exaggerating hurricane severity as a way to increase fears about climate change, Limbaugh, who lives in Palm Beach County, said last Thursday his comments were taken out of context. Then he said he would evacuate and not be on the air until Monday from "parts unknown," because it would be "legally impossible" to broadcast from Florida.

Before Limbaugh left town Al Roker, co-anchor of NBC's Today, criticized Limbaugh on Twitter as "putting lives at risk" by saying Hurricane Irma forecasts were "hype."

"To have @rushlimbaugh suggest the warnings about #Irma are #fake or about profit and to ignore them borders on criminal. #ShameOnRush," he tweeted.

Limbaugh talked about climate change and Irma on his show Monday, saying, "My whole point about this was never that it was fake, that the warnings were never fake, that the strength of the hurricane was fake. I never said anything of the sort. I questioned how the media deals with all of this stuff."

Coulter continued Tuesday to tweet about media's coverage of Irma saying, "CNN: Right now, there are people in Florida whose GROCERIES ARE SPOILING."


Ann Coulter
✔ @AnnCoulter

I don't believe Hurricane Harvey is God's punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that is more credible than "climate change."

Brilliant display of conservative 'knowledge' of theology, biology and meteorology and climatology. A real tour de force.



Annise Parker
✔ @AnniseParker

Darn it, I thought no one knew I had a super power over weather

Parker said it took her some time to respond to Coulter because she was helping run a shelter for hurricane victims for non-profit BakerRipley, where she's chief strategy officer.

Last week, Parker also fired back at Coulter that “You don’t try to deal rationally with stupid," during an interview on SiriusXM Progress' The Michelangelo Signorile Show, the host wrote on HuffPost.

With two hurricanes having recently hit the U.S., and another, Jose, perhaps on the way, the argument over climate change and its effect on the disastrous storms is unlikely to dissipate. Just check Twitter — and the airwaves.

---