Posted on 12/06/2010 8:44:38 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
BRISTOL — America’s most popular radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, blasted Bristol the other day for supposedly making off with some of the $3.3 trillion in loans given to businesses by the Federal Reserve during the recession.
While the charge is false – even absurd given the city’s paltry place in the financial arena – Limbaugh didn’t stop there.
He described Bristol to his millions of listeners as nothing more than ESPN.
“That’s all that’s there: ESPN and a couple of cheap hotels,” Limbaugh said on his nationally syndicated show Thursday.
That was more than enough to stir Bristol’s mayor, Art Ward.
Ward fired off a note Friday demanding an apology from Limbaugh to the people of the city he slurred with his “erroneous venom.”
“I insist that you render us all an apology for your characterization of the city as only having ESPN and a few cheap hotels,” Ward said.
“We are extremely proud of our community, being the home of ESPN, being hard working, patriotic people, with the fifth largest veterans population in the state of Connecticut,” Ward said, then mentioned that Money Magazine recently cited the city as one of its Top 100 in which to live.
“We have a national, state and city pride which is second to none and take exception to your callous, irresponsible characterization of our home,” Ward said.
Limbaugh could not be reached for comment late Friday or Saturday.
On the show, Limbaugh talked extensively about stories in a variety of newspapers about companies that got federal loans during the credit crunch at the start of the recession, most of them big players on Wall Street or the world of commerce.
After Limbaugh pointed out that General Electric got about $116 million in loans, he added that “even the California State Teachers Retirement System got some of this money.
The city of Bristol, Connecticut, General City Retirement Fund got some of this money.”
The talk show giant said that both retirement funds were “going to the Federal Reserve and borrowing money.”
That simply isn’t true.
“The city of Bristol did not receive any of the monies which you were alluding to us receiving along with General Electric,” Ward told Limbaugh
What the city’s retirement fund actually did was something quite different.
The head of the city’s Retirement Board, T.J. Barnes, who also heads Bristol’s Republican Party, said the city took advantage of the chance to invest some of its surplus pension money in a new federal program aimed at making more credit available to business.
The city put money into the program, he said, in the hope of making a profit for its already flush pension accounts.
Barnes said that Bristol didn’t get one penny from the government as a loan or a grant. It merely made some money by investing in the program – and could have come up short had things worked out differently.
Barnes said that Limbaugh was wrong in including Bristol among loan recipients, though he blamed confusing news stories for misleading the radio guru.
It isn’t clear whether Limbaugh has ever been in Bristol.
For a brief time, he was a commentator for ESPN, but resigned in 2003 after many people thought one of his remarks about NFL quarterback Donovann McNabb was racist.
God, I love Freepers like you who don’t mince words! Good one!
Well, you can’t really blame them for taking the sauce when it is offered to them. But it looks as if the Mayor was misrepresenting things rather than Bloomberg. Maybe technically correct, that it wasn’t quite for the purpose that Bloomberg indicated. But pork they took.
As I expected, he is a Democrat. Obama’s stooges wouldn’t give that kind of money to a Republican. His party is mentioned in an article about his hospitalization:
Evidently he’s a part of the state Democrat machine, since the governor was considering making him the state’s Veteran’s Affairs Administrator.
Rush is Right. Bristol is a Turnpike exit with ESPN.
If they had set up shop in Danbury instead the largest
business in town today would be a Dennys.
Maybe Bristol, CT will become the eastern Rio Linda?
The kids in Bristol are as sharp as a pistol...
Hey, my Dad’s family is from Bristol ...
Used to be a hard-working blue collar town with A LOT of industry [such as the New Departure Machine Works, a division of GM]. During WWII, New Departure made precision ball bearings for airplanes, tanks, trucks, and even Norden Bomb Sights ...
But, as with almost everything in the area, the industry dried up and now it is essentially a bedroom community for Hartford ...
What a shame ...
“Coincidentally, the very same mayor is currently in the hospital in critical condition, from what I’ve heard.”
Instant Karma’s gonna get you,
Gonna look you right in the face,
Better get yourself together darlin’,
Join the human race,
ESPN can’t get much further out of Bristol than it is right now. In fact it’s contiguous property includes the next town to the south, Southington. So it’s on the city/town line.
My only visits to Bristol are when I take my kids to Lake Compounce.
Lake Compounce is the oldest continuously running amusement park in the country. It is a clean park that caters to families with kids under 14. A nice place. ESPN is located near the entrance to the park.
So I have a pretty positive impression of Bristol. However, I’ve never been to the more urban part of the town.
Somebody’s Stomping in town !
Bristol, CT bump
Is that because there are a lot of veterans or because there aren't very many veterans?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.