Background checks for journalists

Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh suggests journalists are "dangerous" and should be required to pass a background check and mental health screening before being allowed to broadcast or publish.

"I think we ought to do to the first amendment practitioners what they want to do to the second amendment practitioners. We ought to do background checks on these people to see which of them are mentally ill and if they are, deny them access to the public airwaves and the newspapers as so-called news reporters or journalists because they’re dangerous. They are dangerous to the republic."

He added, "I don't know folks, I'm just talking out loud. These are just a great example of the constant and never-ending explosions taking place in my fertile brain."


Makes me wonder if Mr. Limbaugh would successfully pass a mental health check. Sometimes, he strikes me as someone about to come unglued.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/rush-limbaugh-background-checks-media-mental-illness_n_2718908.html

 

Go right ahead, Flushboy.

 

In a just world, this goes on the headstone.

 

I didn't listen today, but...

Does it occur to anyone that he was trying to make a point regarding the restrictions people want to put on the right of people to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights?

 

Oh, yeah. Lame attempt. Journalists aren't killing people.

 

Would taking painkiller in such quantities that it destroys your hearing be grounds for losing your right to broadcast?

How about being a sex tourist?

 

When journalists are outlawed, only outlaws will have journalists.

 

You can have my notepad and pen when you pry them out of my cold, dead hand.

 

Journalists don't kill people ...

 

What's Bob Menendez got to do with this?

 

No amendment is absolute.

Suppose I decide to start a pirate radio station, and I decide to use the frequency of the station that broadcasts Rush? And my station interferes with Rush's program. The government would crack down on me, right? Even though they would be restricting my First Amendment right to free speech.

 

Wouldn't this guy have failed every drug test except the Colombian one?