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Yesterday, in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Radio station WIOD, AM 610, has been the official channel for emergency information from Broward County government for the past year. The County Commission, all Democrats, balked at renewing the deal Tuesday, unable to stomach the station also being home to [Rush] Limbaugh's talk show.

Commissioner Stacy Ritter said she did not want to support a station that's out of step with area politics. Ritter, a Democratic stalwart in the state Legislature before being elected to county office, cited talk shows hosted by Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and WIOD's partnership with Fox News.

A Democrat "stalwart"? Are the editors at the Sun-Sentinel aware that that term originated in the late nineteenth century to describe what was then the conservative wing of the Republican Party? I think if any of them knew, they'd use a different superlative, like "accessory" or "disciple" - nah, too religious - or "henchman" - nah, Ritter is female - how about "satellite," "sycophant," or "zealot"? Hey, they all work for me.

Commodore Hewitt was all over this like Bill Clinton on the Playboy harem:

And so we reach the inevitable end of the left’s campaign against the First Amendment. The Democrats in Broward County have officially declared themselves as the anti-free speech party. Commissioner Ritter is to be applauded for her candor, for declaring openly what elected Democrats across the country mutter quietly to themselves: “Rush, Sean and the rest must be silenced!”

I have heard of brass-knuckled politics before, but never anything on the order of denying your political opponents news of approaching hurricanes.

When Katrina struck, some wild-eyed lefties accused President Bush of denying relief efforts to New Orleans because the city was predominantly African-American.

Now we have actual proof of Democrats wanting to keep conservatives in the dark about approaching storms.

I don't know how much of that Hugh meant as hyperbole, but I think it's pure-d fact. If our enemies could genetically engineer a plague virus that would infect only conservatives, and be lethal to Christian conservatives, they wouldn't need to sneak operatives into the homeland to unleash it. All they'd need to do is phone the DNC, arrange for overnight delivery, and Howard Dean would take care of the rest.

Just shutting us up? That's a given in their minds. For the good of America, of course. And we say Dems aren't patriotic.

Getting back to synonymery for a moment, another term for "brass-knuckled" is "ham-fisted." Ms. Ritter tells the Sun-Sentinel, it goes all over the 'Net, Hugh writes his blistering Townhall column and guests on Hannity & Combs to amplify it. But what am I (deliberately) leaving out? C'mon, you must have already guessed - Rush Limbaugh himself saw the story and talked about it on his show yesterday.

Twenty-four hours and a melted switchboard later, the Broward County Donks ran up the white flag.

Now, was there really any way that an outrage like this was going to stand? Even if Commissioner Ritter had not boasted this piece of censorship to the press, it still would have been reported by WIOD. Did the Broward County Soviet really think they could sneak this under the radar?

I don't think there's much, if any, cunning, or even rational thought, behind such stunts. For libs, even though the political wind is at their backs and they'll be back in total power in a year and a half with their heroine of heroines on the throne she'll have custom-made for the Oval Office, such an inferiority complex is instinctual. Twelve years out of power in Congress and six out of power altogether has evidently made lefties so paronoid and insecure that - as I've written on many occasions and doubtless will again (as long as I'm allowed to) - they have no more use for democracy. Once Democrats take everything back in 2008, it'll be Hugo Chavez Lite. The Republic we've known for 232 years will be gutted, the deck stacked, and behind the facade they leave intact America will become a one-party state as authoritarian as they can get away with.

Seems far-fetched? I'm getting paranoid myself? Sure. And the 2000 election was a calm, civil, orderly transfer of power. Something that I also predicted years beforehand in general, if not the specifics. I anticipate something similar in reverse next year if the presidential race looks remotely competitive, but there's plenty of time before I have to wade into that swamp.

But that's why headlines like, "Hurricane Information May Not Reach Wide Audience Because of Rush" and lines like, "For listeners who really can't stomach a right-wing hurricane report..." are more than just punchlines. Liberals really mean and believe them. If they weren't such panzy-assed pacifists I'd consider an eventual honest-to-goodness second Civil War, in some form or another, not outside the realm of possibility.

Instead, they're trying to re-expose us to Islamist mass-casualty terrorism. Kind of the outsourcing of partisan politics by alternative means. Which, in optimistic practice, would mean that the enemy would simply kill people like Commissioner Ritter last.

But hey, at least Limbaugh and Hannity would be off the air, right?