A former Texas waitress hates conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and his political views so much that she donated the hefty tips he left for her to a pro-choice organization.
Author Merritt Tierce used to wait tables at Nick & Sam’s, a high-end Dallas, Texas steakhouse. Some of the wild tales she saw while working there made it into her debut novel, ‘Love Me Back’. But one did not.
On two occasions, Tierce served Limbaugh and sports broadcaster Al Michaels. Both times, Limbaugh left her $2,000 tips on modest-size checks, once with twenty $100 bills, she told the Dallas Morning News.
But Tierce wasn’t as grateful for the money as the waitress in ‘It Could Happen to You’ was, and refused to keep the cash.
“That was like blood money to me,” she said.
The then-waitress was also the executive director of the Texas Equal Access (TEA) Fund, an organization that “provides financial assistance to low-income people who want an abortion and can't afford it,” according to its website. The group does not cover the full cost of an abortion, but instead provides grants of $75 to $200 towards the procedure, paid directly to the clinic.
Tierce donated “a sizable chunk” of the two $2,000 tips to the TEA Fund, the Morning News reported. The gift potentially helped dozens of women get abortions.
“It felt like laundering the money in a good way,” she said. “He’s such an obvious target for any feminist or sane person. It was really bizarre to me that he gave me $2,000, and he’s evil incarnate in some ways.”
Leslie Salzillo at the Daily Kos cheered Tierce’s generosity. “... thanks to Merritt Tierce, Rush Limbaugh has been indirectly funding who knows how many abortions. I don't know about anyone else, but that puts a huge smile on my face,” she wrote.
But not everyone applauded the move or the sentiment behind it.
Twitchy Media linked her story to “yet another ‘fascist’ campaign to silence” Limbaugh.
Breitbart writer Debra Heine called Tierce an “ingrate,” and lambasted the Texan for “[u]ngratefully spitting on the generosity of a conservative.”
“She refuses to accept the possibility that a person she disagrees with on abortion might just have a generous heart - it's ‘really bizarre’ to her,” Heine continued. “Do these people have any clue at all of how monstrous they look?”
Tierce’s interview about the incident comes just as she is promoting her book’s publication, the Inquisitr noted: “But the Rush Limbaugh story did not make it into her book, and she’s going out of her way to ensure everyone knows the story.”