RUSH: On the day of the shooting we know that officers stopped the suspect. 
They let him go, but they stopped him. He slipped through the sheriff’s hands. It’s kind of rhetorical to ask if the sheriff, Mr. Dupnik, will apologize. But Dupnik, the sheriff, knew that Jared Loughner had written ‘Die, bitch’ on that note to her in 2007. He knew that on the day of the shooting, which calls into great question the motives of Sheriff Dupnik here in the way he has conducted himself since the shooting and since he decided to go public on television with his idle speculation as to the reason for the shooting. From a layman’s perch here, it appears that Sheriff Dupnik has been acting with malice as he runs around and blames Sarah Palin and blames me and others who do what I do for this sordid incident.
Will Obama say tonight in his remarks in Tucson that Dupnik acted stupidly as he did in describing the actions of the cop in Cambridge? Will Obama castigate Dupnik? No, this is not gonna happen. He called Dupnik and thanked him yesterday. He called Sheriff Dupnik, the president did, to thank him for his great work in keeping Pima County safe and following up in his efforts to find out what happened here. So, no, Obama will not castigate Dupnik and the rest of the media and the Democrats for jumping to conclusions. He will not insist on holding a beer summit with Dupnik. Why was that ‘Die, bitch’ note covered up? I mean it’s now how many days? Saturday, Sunday, Monday — four days. Four days and we are still learning about all of this. Why did the media bury that information?
Why did Good Morning America bury on their website ’til the second page, the 12th paragraph, the good friend saying, ‘He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t like the news.’ (interruption) Well, exactly. The allegations are far more interesting than the facts. The allegations, the speculation, is far more interesting to the media, which would also love to see talk radio shut down and put out of business along with Fox News. You can’t take that out of the equation. You can’t call this an isolated incident. This is just the latest in a pattern.
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RUSH: In the Arizona Republic in Phoenix: ‘Sheriff’s Department and community-college officials in Pima County are refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the [shooter]. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Pima Community College have [refused] to release documents that could shed light on run-ins they had with 22-year-old Jared Loughner in the months prior to the shooting.’ Sheriff Dupnik will not release data on the suspect. No doubt it contradicts his public statements.
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RUSH: ‘Sheriff’s Department and community-college officials in Pima County are refusing to release a wide range of public documents about the man charged in Saturday’s shooting rampage that left six dead and more than a dozen wounded. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department’ that’s Clarence Dupnik ‘and Pima Community College have declined to release documents that could shed light on run-ins they had with 22-year-old Jared Loughner in the months prior to the shooting. The Arizona Public Records Law requires that records be ‘open to inspection by any person at all times’ unless officials can prove releasing the information would violate rights of privacy or confidentiality or otherwise harm the best interests of the state.
‘The Arizona Republic requested that records, including incident reports on campus and calls for dispatch of deputies to Loughner’s home, be released under the law. Such reports are often released as a matter of course in criminal cases. College officials have not indicated when or if they will release the information, saying they want prior approval from the FBI and are concerned about violating federal laws protecting the privacy of student information. … On Monday, The Republic requested copies of any reports from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department involving contacts with Loughner or calls to his house. Pima County Deputy Rene Carlson said her office would not release the reports without a specific date, though this is not required by state statute.
‘Carlson said providing these documents would be tantamount to releasing criminal history. Carlson said she could not speculate on the nature of any calls for service regarding Loughner. She also said no calls or incidents involved threats made by Loughner. The Republic also requested the names of the people wounded in Saturday’s shooting. The Sheriff’s Department has not released any names, although names of several victims have emerged in media reports. The Sheriff’s Department did not provide a reason for withholding the list.’ So I wonder: When the president called Sheriff Dupner — Dupnik — to congratulate him, if he congratulated him on his transparency and his responsibilities to the public. Did he call him up and say, ‘Hey, Dupnik, hell of a job, Babe!’ Back to the phones. Terry, Alaska. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush, and happy birthday.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: It’s so great to be able to talk to you on your birthday. That’s pretty cool. I just wanted to make a quick point here that these are the same people that have been telling us for years that you were nothing more than an entertainer and that you were not to be taken seriously and they kind of downplay you and discount you and —
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: — that’s really insulting my intelligence here, this whole thing. Because on one hand now we’re supposed to think, you know, it’s so inflammatory what they’re doing here; and then, you know, it wasn’t that long ago that I watched different things on TV, and they laugh you off as though you were nothing to be taken seriously as it was just you’re a money making gig that doesn’t mean anything.
RUSH: Right, right, right, right, right. ‘Just an entertainer.’
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Not to be taken seriously, exactly right.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: It’s amazing how that’s a fluid description. That changes from issue to issue, based on how the media seeks to have me portrayed.
CALLER: Yeah, they’re truly insulting our intelligence here.
RUSH: Well, they are. Really, they are in the minority here. As far as election results, polls indicate, they are in the minority. And in the process, they’re insulting the majority. Like you feel insulted, everybody who listens to the program feels insulted. Everybody who watches Fox News feels insulted. That doesn’t stop them. They continue with this whole diatribe. Sheriff Dupnik appeared on MSNBC with Chris Matthews last night. Chris Matthews played sound bites of me, trying to rile up the sheriff. We have some of the examples of this. Before the interview with the sheriff, Matthews played this sound bite from this program yesterday.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is on the path here of attempting now to expressly personally associate me with this event … [EDIT] We have a law enforcement officer, the sheriff of that county, admitting he’s got no facts for what he’s speculating about … [EDIT] I don’t know. Maybe Pima County would have been better served by a real sheriff, one who spent his time trying to lock up nutbags and criminals rather than finding ways to excuse them. … [EDIT] He hasn’t pointed out a single thing that I have said that would inspire such a heinous act …
RUSH: So Matthews then says to the sheriff, ‘Looks like you got old El Rushbo riled up here, Sheriff. Let me ask you about it. What do you make of that? Did you know you would open up a hornets’ nest from right radio? What do you make of it? Do you think there’s a connection between the atmospherics, the hatred of government you hear on the radio, the hatred of Obama you hear on the right wing, the language you hear all the time that they’re evil, taking over the country with socialism, et cetera, et cetera? Do you think that had anything whatever to do with this person’s behavior and this tragedy?’
What a setup! (laughing) What a lead-in question! All the hatred, the hatred for Obama? No, Chris, it’s called love of country. I know. This is just despicable. It’s called love, Chris. You’re better than this. This is the thing. What a descent you have made from the days I first met this guy. You know, it was Chris Matthews when Bill Clinton told the racist joke about me at the White House Correspondents Dinner who came up to me when it was over and said, ‘You’re not the Rush Limbaugh I know if you let that stand. You can’t let the president of the United States call you a racist!’ He was really animated. ‘You can’t let the president of the United States call you a racist. You can’t! That’s beyond the pale. That’s outrageous.’ To: ‘hornets’ nest,’ ‘atmospherics,’ ‘hatred of government that you hear every day,’ hatred of government.’ Love-of-country, Chris. Anyway you heard the setup. Here is Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
DUPNIK: There’s no doubt in my mind! Particularly troubled personalities, which is what we’re dealing with here, are very vulnerable to the emotion that comes out — especially anger, hate, paranoia, and so forth. You talk about crosshairs on Gabby Giffords. Well, I want to tell you that her opponent — who was heartily endorsed, very vocally by Sarah Palin — had an event, a fundraising event where the people were invited, I think, to a barbecue or something. After the barbecue, if they wanted to, they could each come up and fire an automatic rifle, a semiautomatic rifle!
RUSH: Oooooooooo!
DUPNIK: And the same individual had hundreds of campaign ads starting out by saying, ‘Are you as mad as Washington? Boy, I want to tell you, I sure am!’
RUSH: Sheriff? Sheriff, you were asked about me! Why does he keep bringing Sarah Palin into this for? I’m gonna start getting a complex here. Matthews set him up to talk about me and Dupnik started talking about Sarah Palin again. ‘Are you mad at Washington?’ What is…? Sheriff, what is the difference in people’s anger at Washington and YOUR anger at talk radio people? Why is YOUR anger justified, Sheriff, even though it is baseless, when people’s anger at government makes total sense based on what they believe and what they see this government doing to the economy of this country? Why is YOUR hatred always justified, Sheriff? Whatever you have animosity for.
Do you know that Sheriff Joe Arpaio was lynched and decapitated — a doll or whatever you call it, an effigy. Joe Arpaio was decapitated in Pima County and Sheriff Dupnik didn’t say anything about that. Sarah Palin has been hung in effigy in West Hollywood, on Halloween. I don’t remember anybody worried about whatever violence that might cause. Dupnik, in fact… Sheriff, you know, it sounds to me like you’re trying to whip up some deranged people into some action here. Sheriff, it doesn’t sound to me like you’re doing much to calm people down. It sounds to me like you’re doing a damn good job of really revving people up, Sheriff, as I listen to these sound bites of yours. As you heard, Clarence didn’t take the bait. Matthews wanted him to talk about me and the evil of government, or taking over the country, hornets’ nest of right-wing radio — and the sheriff did a 180 back to Sarah Palin. So Matthews played another sound bite of me (chuckles), to try to get the sheriff to stay on topic. This is the bite talking about Mark Penn on Matthews’ own show.
RUSH ARCHIVE: [P]owerful Democrats, wished for this. It happened on Chris Matthews’ show. Powerful Democrats wished for this as a means of an opportunity for the president to shore up his sagging base, poll numbers, what have you. Voila! In two months’ time, we have a nutcase opening fire in Tucson, Arizona — and, lo and behold, leading Democrats are conducting strategy sessions with the president on how he can use the right words to maximize this event. He wants to lay this on me or Palin when we have nothing to do with it, yet leading Democrats actually hoped for this. Interesting conspiracy theory, isn’t it?
RUSH: So Matthews then said this about me and my remarks that Democrats hoped for an event like this in Tucson.
MATTHEWS: If you’re a conspirital (sic) nut, I guess so. Mark Penn — who is a centrist, not a man of the left by any stretch of the imagination — was on this program not talking about how the left can settle scores with the right after a tragedy; but how, if anything like that were to happen, how the president would be could be a peacemaker, how he could be a man of the center like Clinton was after Oklahoma City; not how the left could get even with the right or could exploit it to hurt the right, but how to calm things down. It was a totally different proposal! In fact, it wasn’t even a proposal. It was a statement of what might happen if it did happen. It wasn’t a conspiracy plan, like Rushbo is alleging for his full-mooners out there.
RUSH: Hey, Chris! Come on, man. We all heard what Mark Penn said. He was talking about how Obama needed an event like that for the opportunity to reconnect with the American people. He didn’t say anything about centrism! He was hoping for another — and he cited the event — Oklahoma City. That event helped Clinton. And don’t forget, Chris, somebody on your side after 9/11 happened lamented that this didn’t happen when Clinton was president, that this doofus Bush benefits from 9/11 by having an opportunity at greatness here. So, Chris, we heard what Penn said, but we couple that with knowing how you people on the left think — and we are validated because the event has happened, and you guys cannot restrain yourselves. Your focus on this event is the right wing. Your focus on this shooting for four days has been on how right-wingers are responsible for this, and you’re doing everything you can to create mind-sets with your ‘full-mooners’ into believing that that’s actually what made this happen. Then he brings old Clarence back into the conversation, to get Clarence’s take on this, and Clarence denounces the nut people in radio.
DUPNIK: I would ask the question: Which political party is benefiting from anger at the government?
MATTHEWS: Well, I suppose the Republican Party this year. Right. So therefore?
DUPNIK: And, uh… And therefore I anticipate that, uh, the, uh, nut people in the, uh, radio — uh, some of the nut people, I should say, in the radio business — and the TV b-business are gonna continue to inflame the public with hatred until after 2012.
RUSH: Uhhhhh… Now, in order to believe this, you have to believe that those of you who voted Republican did so because you were made to hate government by us, that you weren’t smart enough to realize that they rammed the health care law down your throat that you told ’em you didn’t want, that you didn’t want all this spending. You didn’t want all of this indebtedness. You didn’t want all this generational theft. You didn’t want the government owning car companies. You didn’t want the government printing money. You didn’t want all of this economic destruction. You didn’t want the stimulus bill. No, even though you didn’t want all that, you were totally prepared to pull the lever for Democrats again — until I came along, until ‘nut people’ on the radio came along. Well, a political party benefiting from anger at the government? It’s Mars-Venus, you’d have to say.
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RUSH: By the way, Mark Penn was working for Clinton as a pollster during the Oklahoma City bombing, a real centrist, right? That’s what Matthews said, Mark Penn is a centrist. He worked for Hillary during her presidential run. Mark Penn is married to Nancy Jacobson. Nancy Jacobson is one of the founders of the No Labels group. He-he-he-he-he. A bunch of displaced Democrats. Mark Penn was basically forced out of the Hillary campaign in 2008 because he wanted to go much more negative against Obama, and nobody had the guts to do it. Let’s go back and listen to what Mark Penn said on Matthews’ show November 4th of 2010 about what Obama needs to have to happen to help him turn things around.
PENN: President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma. And the President right now…
MATTHEWS: Because of the bombing down there.
PENN: …seems removed. And it wasn’t until that speech that he re-clicked with the American public. Obama needs a similar kind of event.
RUSH: Obama needs a similar Oklahoma City bombing. He didn’t say Obama needs to wait around for something like that to happen and then go — he said Obama needs. They got it. And guess who’s giving a speech tonight that becomes the breathless anticipation of the media? Obama. That’s their real focus today. What will he say? Will he pull it all together? Will he get it all back? Will Obama once again take control of the country because of the actions of talk radio leading to what happened in Arizona? They are so hoping Obama follows the template and dumps on Palin, so hoping that.
By the way, which party benefited from anger at the government in 2006-2008, Sheriff Dupnik? Which party featured leaders hoping this nation would lose the war in Iraq, Sheriff Dupnik? Which party was it that wanted us to lose a war? It was Sheriff Dupnik’s party, the Democrats. That’s who was hoping would lose the war. And don’t forget audio sound bite number three, one of the shooter’s best friends on Good Morning America today.
OSLER: He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left; he wasn’t on the right.