Posted on 08/14/2019 3:26:19 PM PDT by Kaslin
RUSH: Since there are an increasing number of people tuning into this program each and every day, my good friends, we’ll take the opportunity of this occasion to explain something once and for all since, as I mentioned, the entertainment tabloid TV shows decided to do exhaustive in-depth investigations into just where this nickname “Fredo” came from.
don’t blame them. They’re watching this happen all day yesterday. Where did this come from? The Drive-Bys are not reporting it. In fact, the best story on this so far that gets it exactly right, unsurprisingly, is the Fox News website. And we’ll link to that at RushLimbaugh.com. But let’s go to the audio sound bites first.
For those who are tuned in here because you were watching Entertainment Tonight last night or Daily Mail TV or whatever some of the other prime access entertainment shows are, and you heard that I am responsible for this, and you’re livid and you’re outraged because you think there’s some sort of racial slur involved here, I’m glad you’re here because I want to explain to you once and for all what this is about. And, in the process, exhibit and illustrate how the Drive-By Media lets you down by not giving you anywhere near the facts of the truth of things.
So let’s start here first with Daily Mail TV, the syndicated tabloid TV show. The host here is the noted journalist and former New York Giants backup quarterback Jesse Palmer. And he put a reporter on the case out there, Chris Spargo, and here’s how it sounded.
PALMER: Besides Cuomo being Italian, is there any other reason why that guy could have decided to call him “Fredo” in the first place?
SPARGO: Well, the clip was originally posted by a man who was said to be an avid listener of conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, where the host often refers to Cuomo as “Fredo.”
RUSH: Right, but that’s as far as it went. “Oh, so Limbaugh did it. Oh, well, that explains it; Limbaugh did it.” Now we move on to Inside Edition — I lose track of the names of these shows. Is Entertainment Tonight still on? Does anybody still know? Is Entertainment Tonight still on? Did you know Mary Hart used to host that show way, way back? Anyway, this is Inside Edition and this is some reporter, I don’t know his name, talking about the Fredo meltdown video yesterday.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Cuomo first got the nickname “Fredo” from right-wing radio show host Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Fredo Cuomo is the co-host of CNN’s New Day.
RUSH: Let me just take another brief moment to explain where this started. It all really started in 2016 when Fredo went to Cuba. He went to Cuba on assignment, CNN, to go down there and discuss and learn how great the communist revolution in Cuba was doing. And Fredo was dissatisfied with what he saw. He was very unhappy with what he saw. And it was a few months after that that I began to use the term Fredo.
It had nothing to do with ethnicity. It has nothing to do with the mob. Has nothing to do with the Mafia, has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with what Fredo is. Fredo Corleone was who? He was the black sheep of the Corleone family. He had Sonny out there murdering people and getting murdered. He had Michael taking over the whole family, the real bad guy, who didn’t want any part of the family at first, nor his dad.
And then Fredo. Fredo wanted to be accepted and loved by everybody, but just didn’t have the brain matter to pull it off. Nothing ethnic about this at all. So let’s put this to bed once and for all. Grab audio sound bite No. 22. March 21st, 2016. CNN show called New Day. The co-host is Alisyn Camerota. She’s asking Fredo about what he’s wearing, his attire while he covered Obama’s trip to Cuba.
Camerota said, “Fredo, we can’t help –” Well, she didn’t say Fredo, she called him Chris. So I guess I should stick to the transcript. “Chris, we can’t help but notice your culturally appropriate garb that you’re wearing. Tell us the history of your shirt.” And here is what Chris Cuomo, now Fredo, said. Listen carefully here. You shouldn’t have to listen very carefully, but actually focus on this for a second.
CUOMO: My guayabera? This shirt belonged to my father. It was given to him by Fidel Castro. It marked conversations going on decades ago that were the same as those today. The concern was the freedom of the people. What is the point of this communist regime if it is not to truly make everyone equal, not at the lowest level, not by demoralizing everyone, but lifting everyone up. My father, generations of politicians have been fighting this. So I wear this shirt as a reminder of that.
RUSH: That’s all it took. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings of communism and it explains a lot, because I think a lot of people on the left have an egalitarian view of communism. (impression) “It’s based on equality and sameness and fairness and social justice,” and all this “woke” garbage going on.
Communist is a tyranny. It kills people. Communists build walls around their country to keep people in. People get put in jail in communist countries for what they think if it’s outside what the state permits.
There’s no equality.
There’s no sameness.
There’s no prosperity.
There isn’t any increasing standard of life.
The leaders have everything, and the population basically exists in a meager way with no hope. They literally have no hope. They have no freedom. They have literally no freedom whatsoever. They speak to each other in whispers in their bathrooms, hoping the state does not overhear what they say. For Chris Cuomo to be down in Cuba and to be upset that the communists are screwing it up because they’re not elevating people?
“What is the point of this communist regime if it is not to truly make everyone equal, not at the lowest level, not by demoralizing everyone, but lifting everyone up?” Where in the world does that happen? Lifting everybody up does not happen in socialism. It does not happen in communism. But you know this explains a lot to me. This is a guy who is Fredo, and that’s when I began to use the name because, folks, this is just… (big sigh) I’ll be charitable.
This is just as incorrect and wrong as it can be, and yet this guy has a prime time show on a nationwide cable news network! And he doesn’t have the slightest idea what communism is, which begs the question: How many of the rest of the people in the Drive-By Media don’t really know what it is despite its presence all over the world and despite the evidence? It’s a legitimate question, because these people are sympathetic to communism regimes. They love Chavez. They love the old Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev and Khrushchev, Yuri Andropov, all of them.
They love Castro, and I’ve been trying to figure out, “What is the romantic attachment to these killer despot tyrants that all of these leftists have?” I’ve come to the conclusion… I could be wrong about this, but what it is, is almost an envy or a jealousy of the power that they have, and the promise. They live in a world where communism promises the same for everybody. It promises equality. This is the great deceit of it all. Communism is not anything anybody should want to aspire to.
Nobody should want to live in a communist regime or country! All you need to do is talk to people who have, who have escaped. People die trying to get out of those places. Yet here was Fredo down in Cuba, and he found exactly what communism provides. He found poverty. He found hopelessness. He found people with absolutely no future. He found people that did not have any way to enjoy life. And he’s blaming the communists for screwing it up, not realizing that that’s what communism is. So that’s the origin of the term, for me, “Fredo.”
It has nothing to do with the mob. It has nothing to do with the N-word. It has nothing to do with ethnicity in any shape, matter, or form. It has to do with sheer ignorance. All right. I got that out of the way. Now everybody understands. I doubt this will get covered beyond this program today, but there was a lot of attention. Since the entertainment shows are looking at it, that means a broad-based demographic swath of the country was exposed to this that otherwise wouldn’t have been.
Besides Cuomo being Italian, is there any other reason why...
Being an American with Italian ancestry myself, I can say that cuomo isn’t italian.
Our first ancestors to come to America are a little more recent than most Western European folks but that does not mean we are “Italian”.
When joking around about something or other here, I and others will use the word Italian as our nationality but of course it’s not.
Even my friends that go there regularly DO NOT consider themselves Italian.
We’re Americans.
And most stopped speaking the language so quickly when they got here that many second and third generation could barely speak Italian or not at all.
Like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, who had to learn it for their parts in The Godfather movies.
My father came here as a child and didn’t speak it almost at all in the house.
I learned from my mother’s mother.
None of this changes my previous offer to take Fredo fishing with me and my wife...
BTW (and I have been listening to Rush since the “WABC Local Show” denuded - Day one) the Nickname was coined by Chris Plante. Chris’s Show is spot on and hilarious!
“And most stopped speaking the language so quickly when they got here that many second and third generation could barely speak Italian or not at all.”
A coworker born, raised and very well educated in Italy enjoyed speaking Italian with a Tex-Mex coworker speaking Spanish.
They said it was not 100% but could understand each other.
The Tex-Mex guy was the worlds worst Spanish teacher, ever!
He worked for me twenty-plus years and I had a few semesters in school. All that and still not much!!!
A smart guy, but not much of a Spanish instructor.
Is Fredo a popular Italian name in NYC?
I lived in a solid Italian neighborhood for years, knew some named Fred, Maybe only their mother called them Fredo?
It took the fans like a week and 10 missed tackles to start calling him Fredo Matthews, the lesser brother. Casey Matthews is not italian.
Fans did the same thing when the Eagles brought in the brother of the really good (but crazy) O-lineman Shawn Andrews. The lesser brother Stacey was brought in with the hopes that he might calm down the nutty (but skilled) brother. Stacey Andrews immediately became known as Fredo Andrews. He's black, not Italian.
Chris Cuomo is an insecure man because he had much to be insecure about. Loser.
Funny you say that. I have a friend who owns an Italian restaurant and speaks fluent Italian and he can give orders to the spanish speaking workers well enough for them to understand.
I wonder if 2nd generation Tex/Mex spanish has its own variations on words :) I know we Americans from the boot have butchered many Italian words so much that true Italians may not know what we’re trying to say :)
I know ONE guy of Italian descent with the name Freddy.
And he is my sister in law’s cousin! So I had to reach to find one.
Not a very common name at all.
Alfredo (Freddy) was much more popular in the first 2 generations. I know more deceased Alfredos than alive ones!
I am second generation but that’s unusual.
Most with ancestors from the boot or 4th and 5th generation now.
A few semesters in school for a smart person can go a long way.
I can’t anymore but for a long time I could understand and speak some French due to my those early French classes.
Sorry for being so long winded!
I had an Alfa Romeo that my girlfriend, now wife, nicknamed “Alfredo,” and sometimes called “Fredo.” Fredo was frequently broken and in the shop.
A few semesters in school for a smart person can go a long way.
I swear I was awake in class and attended almost every day!
As you probably noticed even English is a challenge for me.
Alfredo! The coworker was an Alfredo, I would have never made the Fred/Fredo/Alfredo connection.
Thanks to TexasGator for letting me know that my original post in March of 2016 of this idiotic live interview with Fredo— that the video link to you tub no longer worked.
CNN’s own archive of this show— no such video.
Found it archived and hat tip to Media Research Center and Brent Bozell.
Hopefully so someone got it to Rush for audio replay today’s show.
Fredo the moron, brother of the a@@ governor of NY State, both of them sons of Mario the Pius.
The one clip from the same day as the live interview was a ridiculous memorial to Mario— in which is speeches all pointed out how he was going to stop-— everything that is STILL going on in NYC under Blaseo the commie. Democrats all the time and Mario pledged to fix it and screwed it up worse through socialism.
Deo Vindice.
Chick al-Fredo will now be known as Chicken al-Cuomo.
https://nypost.com/2019/08/13/chris-cuomo-once-referred-to-himself-as-fredo-in-radio-interview/ "Fredo" is NOT actually an anti–Italian American racial epithet. Fredo is the name of a character from the movie "The Godfather." Fredo is the second son of the mob boss Vito Corleone: a womanizer lacking self-control and guile and is regarded as weaker and less intelligent than Corleone's other sons. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/13/chris-cuomo-fredo-video-sparks-debate-fredo-ethnic-slur/1995997001/?utm_source=oembed&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=storylines&utm_content=news&utm_term=3625592002&fbclid=IwAR1frQ8L9Mc8YoquDaFBjXZNhe5U3okKQ4vmb44PMKNW0ra5SRg82oAElGc
https://nypost.com/2019/08/13/chris-cuomo-once-referred-to-himself-as-fredo-in-radio-interview/ "Fredo" is NOT actually an anti–Italian American racial epithet. Fredo is the name of a character from the movie "The Godfather." Fredo is the second son of the mob boss Vito Corleone: a womanizer lacking self-control and guile and is regarded as weaker and less intelligent than Corleone's other sons. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/08/13/chris-cuomo-fredo-video-sparks-debate-fredo-ethnic-slur/1995997001/?utm_source=oembed&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=storylines&utm_content=news&utm_term=3625592002&fbclid=IwAR1frQ8L9Mc8YoquDaFBjXZNhe5U3okKQ4vmb44PMKNW0ra5SRg82oAElGc
‘I have a friend who owns an Italian restaurant and speaks fluent Italian and he can give orders to the spanish speaking workers well enough for them to understand.’
think of it this way; Italian and Spanish have the same degree of mutual intelligibility that English has with Scots...this means that with minimal exposure one can be functional in both...
‘I’m smart...’
what happened to Fredo is one of the most heartbreaking things ever in film...
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