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Tag Archives: Rush Limbaugh

Jun 08 2013 9 cmnts

By Rush Limbaugh’s Logic George Bush Should Be Executed As A War Criminal

Posted by: Mark @ 5:15 pm

This is one of those rare moments when we are compelled to thank Rush Limbaugh for settling an argument that liberals have been making for years. Specifically, that Bush has escaped accountability for gross malfeasance in office. Of course, Limbaugh doesn’t know what his remarks portend and would deny it he were told, but we’ll take what we can get. If Obama is guilty of political mischief, Bush’s guilt is of a far more deadly variety.

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On yesterday’s radio broadcast, Limbaugh went full-on Godwin as he tried (for the umpteenth time) to compare the Obama administration to Hitler’s Nazi regime. This time he inserted a brief disclaimer stating that he wasn’t saying Obama was Hitler, then went on to finish his lecture about how Obama is so much like Hitler. The inspiration for this rant came from a former Reagan national security adviser, Herbert Meyer, whom Limbaugh cited as his source for this extended bit of nonsense:

“[W]hether you believe it or not, there is not one document linking Adolf Hitler to the holocaust. Adolf Hitler never put it on paper what he intended to do. There is no smoking gun. And yet what happened? We know that the Nazis engaged in the Holocaust. Herb Meyer’s point was that the people Hitler hired didn’t have to be told. They didn’t have to be given instructions. All they had to do was listen to what Hitler was saying. All they had to do was listen to what his objectives were. And he said the same thing’s happening here with this administration.”

See? Exactly the same thing is happening now as happened with Hitler (minus the millions of corpses). Obama is deploying coded messages to his minions who will carry out the secret assignments that all two million federal employees know via telepathic transmission and, of course, the ObamaPhone.

The problem with this conspiracy blathering is that the central premise is utterly false. There were numerous documented links between Hitler and the tactics used by his regime to exterminate millions of people. The Wannsee Protocols and the doctrine of the “Final Solution” were explicit instructions to engage in mass murder. The Nuremberg Trials also made public documentary evidence of Hitler’s direct participation in the Holocaust. So right off the bat Limbaugh is revealing nothing other than his own ignorance of history, as well as his gross insensitivity to the victims of the Nazi horrors.

More to the point, the notion that Obama is somehow responsible for what has occurred at the IRS because his agenda was being carried out by underlings who just absorbed his intentions through intuition, is ludicrous. Furthermore, Rush’s twisted logic has repercussions that he may not have considered. During the Bush administration there was an abundance of initiatives that were carried out by people under his authority that were unambiguously illegal. U.S. attorneys were fired for their political affiliations. Covert CIA agents were outed in the press. Lies were used to justify military invasions of countries with whom we were not at war. Prisoners of war were tortured in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

At the time, there were no documentary links definitively tying Bush to these activities. There were also no investigations conducted to ascertain the facts. But by Limbaugh’s reasoning, none of that is necessary. Bush is obviously guilty because the perpetrators worked for him and thus were aware of his unspoken approval for what they did. And since some of those actions are war crimes, then according to Limbaugh, Bush should go on trial ala Nuremberg.

Where once there was a requirement that a “smoking gun” be found to seal the guilt of a criminal defendant, Limbaugh has literally said that such evidence is no longer needed. But the lunacy of his legal ramblings went even further:

“You don’t need to link Obama to it. He hired these people. Lois Lerner and everybody at the IRS who’s doing this is doing everything they can to please Obama.”

Limbaugh might have a point except for the fact that Lois Lerner and IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman are both Republicans who were hired by George Bush. There has not been a single person affiliated with this so-called scandal who has been identified as a Democrat or was hired by a Democratic political appointee. The IRS line workers are either career employees or were hired by the GOP managers at the tax-exempt organizations division (i.e. Lerner).

So if Limbaugh wants to blame everything that happens at the IRS (or the DoJ, or the State Department, or Benghazi, or Sandy Hook, or the JFK assassination) on Obama, then I say we send Bush to the Hague. What do you say, Rush?

May 10 2013 10 cmnts

General, Propaganda

The Talk Radio Congress: Mainstreaming The Madness Of Conspiracy Theories

Posted by: Mark @ 7:55 am

Once upon a time, the most outlandish fantasies of fringe political fabulists were confined to a narrow spectrum on the AM radio dial. They concocted delusional narratives that ranged from murderous first ladies to galactic alliances with Martians. It was an entertaining world of fiction and a guilty pleasure for some, even as the true believers were convinced of the frightening fate that was unfolding.

Today, however, the boundaries between rational political discourse and raving madness have been erased. The extremist peddlers of nightmare scenarios who were once thought to be charmingly eccentric at 1:00am are now advising elected representatives of the people to initiate investigations and draft bills addressing these non-existent threats. Congress today hosts members who are no more reliable (or sane) than the wooly denizens of Alex Jones-land or the lie factory of Fox Nation. Here are just a few of the urban legends that are now circulating in the halls of state and federal legislative bodies courtesy of the whack job broadcasting set.

The UN Arms Treaty That Threatens US Sovereignty
Buttheads The United Nations recently passed an initiative to address the proliferation of “illegal” arms trading amongst terrorists and rogue nations. As expected, the right-wing Chicken Little Brigade immediately began protesting that this was another attempt to dilute national sovereignty and bring about a one-world government. Of course, there is nothing in the proposal that would infringe on the rights of any nation to set their own standards for gun ownership. The actual resolution explicitly states that countries will “exclusively” maintain the right within their borders to, “regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership, including through national constitutional protections on private ownerships.“

This perfectly reasonable attempt to disarm criminals and tyrants was opposed initially by Alex Jones and similar fringe broadcasters. But eventually their outrage bubbled up to singe Republicans in congress who managed to prevent the treaty’s ratification. The GOP opposition was notable for the fact that it concurred with the only three UN nations that also opposed it: Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

Communists Have infiltrated The US Government
This may seem like a throwback to the 1950′s and the Red Scare promulgated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy and others. But make no mistake, this is all too current. Commie hunters in the fringe media are still accusing all liberals of having pinko sympathies. And they have an ally in former representative Allen West, who is now hosting his own web cast. West told a group of supporters that “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.” West lost his seat last November, but it is important to note that the leadership in the House never rebuked him or dissociated themselves or the GOP from his remarks.

Muslims Have Infiltrated The US Government
This is a corollary to the commie conspiracy updated to smear a more contemporary foe. Originally this allegation was espoused by the infamous Islamophobe Pamela Geller. She latched unto the fact that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a close aide with a Muslim-sounding name. Huma Abedin has worked for Clinton for more than a decade and is respected by all who know her. She was even defended by House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. John McCain. That didn’t stop a cabal of House members, led by Tea Party queen Michele Bachmann, to fire off a letter to the State Department demanding an investigation and alleging that Abedin had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

There was never any evidence provided to support these allegations. Nor is there any evidence accompanying the new accusations by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who told WorldNetDaily that Obama deliberately “bungled” the investigation of the Boston marathon bombing because “this administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence.”

Benghazi Is Obama’s Watergate
Fox Nation - Benghazi The king of right-wing talk radio, Rush Limbaugh got the ball rolling with this one. He alleged on his program that Obama was deliberately blocking the investigation into the attack on the US facility in Libya. Limbaugh could not come up with an explanation for why Obama would want to stymie the inquiry, so the implication left hanging was that he had some connection to the attack that he wanted to cover up.

Numerous other media outlets jumped on this mini-bandwagon with Fox News assuming a prominent role. Every Fox program began banging the Benghazi drum, and integral to their publicity push was escalating the scandal to include congressional players to add Washington credibility (such as it is). Republicans like Lindsey Graham and John McCain were happy to comply.

The Most Important Story In History
Not one to be ignored, Glenn Beck joined the fray with what he considered to be the “most important story in history.” The plot involved a Saudi man who was briefly questioned following the Boston marathon bombing. It was quickly discovered that he was a victim, not a suspect, and he was released to recover from his injuries. Beck, however, would not let go of the story. He threatened the White House that if they were not forthcoming with the truth about this, he would reveal the evidence he had that would blow the roof off the White House.

Beck’s deadline came and went with no revelations of scandal. He merely repeated what he had previously alleged, which had already been debunked. Which makes it all the more curious that four members of congress are officially demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security based on what they call “media reports,” but are really just Beck’s psychotic discharges.

The Government Is Stockpiling Ammunition To Kill Us All
Last year there was a flurry of panicky hand-wringing by notorious conspiracy mongers over reports that agencies of the federal government had purchased large caches of ammunition. In the minds of the nutcases on the right, that was evidence that the DHS is plotting a response to some impending disaster scenario wherein they will be forced to kill every person in America five times. That is precisely what Mark Levin, Sean Hannity’s replacement for Sarah Palin, is terrorizing his radio listeners with.

This phony horror story was summarily dismissed by the DHS with documentation and proof that nothing out of the ordinary was occurring. It was merely a purchase contract to lock in lower prices for ammunition used commonly by several law enforcement agencies for regular use and training. Nevertheless, congressional overreaction to the “news” has resulted in a General Accounting Office inquiry into the purchase request. That inquiry was spurred by GOP senator (and Levin listener) James Inhofe who has also drafted a bill to prohibit ammunition purchases in amounts larger than those of previous administrations. Presumably that’s to make sure that the black guy doesn’t get any ideas.

And Then There’s Agenda 21
Amongst the conspiracy theory elite there is only one supreme and all encompassing doctrine of apocalyptic disaster: Agenda 21. The furor over this initiative dates back to the John Birch Society. In reality it just a UN guide to sustainable environments that recommends some completely voluntary measures aimed at advancing smart growth and safer, more livable communities. It was adopted by 178 countries and signed for the U.S. by President George H.W. Bush. It was, however, never ratified by the senate.

Glenn Beck - Agenda 21 Somehow this benign project was transformed in the minds of conservative mythmakers into a monstrously evil plot to steal the liberty of all mankind. Glenn Beck even wrote a book about it wherein he describes it as “centralized control over all of human life on planet earth.” But the panic doesn’t stop there. Multiple state resolutions banning its implementation with a foreboding tenor have been enacted. For example, Tennessee’s resolution condemned its “destructive and insidious nature” and began by saying…

“WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development…”

That’s fairly typical of the numerous legislative measures aimed at defending America from a tyrannical, global, one-world government, orchestrated by despotic environmentalists and the liberal media. And we might as well throw in George Soros because that’s who freshman senator Ted Cruz of Texas believes is responsible for the whole affair. Cruz has promised that he will “…continue leading the fight, to stop Agenda 21 and any other globalist plan that tries to subvert the U.S. Constitution and the liberties we all cherish as Americans.”

These delusional and thoroughly discredited inventions from the paranoia factories of Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, etc., were once the province of the radio backwoods and militia ham operators. And as frightening as these grim fairy tales are, what’s truly scary is that this conspiratorial fiction is now being embraced by elected officials in Washington and state houses across the country.

May 06 2013 10 cmnts

General

Why Does Rush Limbaugh Hate Free Market Capitalism?

Posted by: Mark @ 12:26 pm

It never fails to surface that, whenever a conservative principle inures to a negative result for conservatives, they abandon their principles and whine like colicky babes.

This is the case now with Rush Limbaugh who is upset with one of his radio distributors and is threatening to jump ship. The CEO of Cumulus Media, whose stations carry Limbaugh in some of the nation’s biggest markets including New York, has publicly lamented the decline in revenue from Limbaugh’s program ever since he insulted student Sandra Fluke as a “slut.” The subsequent advertiser exodus was severe and sustained, costing Cumulus millions of dollars in lost ad sales.

According to Politico, Limbaugh is perturbed at Cumulus for correctly attributing the losses to Limbaugh’s fat mouth and boorish manner. The advertiser boycott that resulted is one of the most successful market protests in recent history.

Rather than conduct a clear-eyed self-examination and try to determine the root of the problem, Limbaugh has instead decided to lash out at his partners and, effectively, free market economics. He blithely spends hours on end delivering slobbering paeans to the virtues of capitalism, but when the market expresses its distaste for his rampant vulgar misogyny, he cowers in a defensive posture and hypocritically attacks the financial system he pretends to revere.

Should his threats prove to be more than a calculated tantrum to squeeze out a better contract, Limbaugh could find himself off the air in some major cities. He would likely find other stations to pick up the show, but he would also suffer from the transition. His show could go dark until new stations are found and they can unwind current contracts to make room for him. He would also create some heavyweight competition in what ever Cumulus puts on in his place.

In the end it’s fun to watch hypocrites flounder around when the tides turn against them and they have to make excuses for why the markets they swear by are rejecting them so fiercely.

Apr 11 2013 5 cmnts

Environment, General

The Bible Proves That Climate Change Is Real, But Science Cannot Prove That Rush Limbaugh Is

Posted by: Mark @ 12:18 pm

Yesterday, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas (where else?) spoke at a hearing on the Keystone XL pipeline and revealed his divine justification for denying the science behind climate change. Barton’s source for his reasoning was the biblical story of Noah and the great flood:

Barton: “I would point out that if you’re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

That’s correct. There is no evidence that the flood was caused by hydrocarbon energy exploitation. However, that does not mean that it wasn’t caused by mankind in some other manner. Barton may be listening to too much of Glenn Beck.

Let’s take a look at the factual basis for the argument that Barton is propounding. The bible’s account of Noah asserts that sometime after he was 600 hundred years old he was singled out by God as the only righteous man of his generation and was instructed to build an ark that would preserve the continued existence of every species of life on the planet. So Barton’s opposition to the findings of 1,000′s of atmospheric scientific studies begins with an angry deity, a 600 year-old man, and a magical boat.

More to the point, according to the bible, God was motivated to destroy the vast majority of Earth’s lifeforms due to the prevailing “wickedness of man.” Therefore, it was indeed the behavior of humans that resulted in the climate change that occurred in Noah’s day. That would set the precedent for faithful Christians to concede that humans are responsible for climate change in the present, just as they were in the past. And it could even be the result of the same divine umbrage at our species, because it would be difficult to argue that there isn’t an abundance of wickedness here on Earth today. And for all we know, that wickedness, from God’s perspective, might be related to our defiling of the planet for which he commanded us to be “good stewards.”

In addition to Barton’s rejection of science, his ideological compatriot, Rush Limbaugh, also entered the fray in defense of his science adviser, a thirteen year old kid who called his radio program. Limbaugh proclaimed that “much of science today” is “just a branch of the Democrat Party.”

Rush: “The global warming scientists are just Democrats, folks. They all have a political preference. They’re all part of an agenda … at the end of the story they have to put in this snarky comment that basically implies this kid Alex doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Science responded by noting that Limbaugh is a yet unproven hypothesis who, if he exists, also has an agenda and a political preference. Science further states that they will put up their rigorous, peer-reviewed studies against any ill-informed opinions from children and drug-abusing talk radio hosts.

Feb 25 2013 4 cmnts

General, Wankery

Rush Limbaugh’s Dementia-Riddled Post-Oscar Blabbering

Posted by: Mark @ 5:49 pm

Rush Limbaugh entered the post-Oscar analysis circus to add to the ludicrous accusations directed at the First Lady’s perfectly harmless appearance to present the award for Best Picture. Limbaugh charged her with “hijacking the Academy Awards” because of some unintelligible conspiracy having to do with the Obamas being “snubbed” by the Academy. See if you can decipher what he’s talking about:

“They had to throw the Obamas a crumb cause I think, in truth, the Obamas got snubbed. Not only did his campaign ad, Zero Dark Thirty, not win, but his semi-autobiography lost out too. [...] Lincoln? That’s about Obama. Everybody knows that.”

So they had to mollify the Obamas because Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln didn’t win? And they did this by inviting Michelle to present an award? But that invitation was sent two weeks before anyone other than the Academy’s outside accounting firm knew who the winners were.

What makes Limbaugh think that the Obamas care whether or not Zero Dark Thirty won is never explained. Even worse, Limbaugh thinks that President Obama wrote Lincoln – about himself! And everybody knows it? What part of that film depicts anything associated with Obama? As close as I can figure it is just Limbaugh’s fantasy that Obama will meet the same end as Lincoln.

A little later in his rant, Limbaugh totally loses his mind. He confesses that “I can’t figure Twitter out,” and elaborates on that for several minutes. He also discusses the old “1984″ TV ad for Apple, about which he says “you can’t find this ad on the Internet.” He is referring to this one – that I found on the Internet:

Limbaugh manages to find similarities between the dour Big Brother character in the ad with Obama’s cheerful and positive presentation on the Oscar broadcast. And he speculates that the Oscar gig was “a giant propaganda effort by the White House to put ‘Moo-chelle’ up there,” and that “this was the opening salvo of a Michelle Obama for president effort.” Somehow, he doesn’t find any irony in the fact that he is stretching reason to cast Mrs. Obama as a would-be dictator with robotic disciples, while he forgets that he proudly refers to his own followers as “dittoheads.”

If there was any doubt before, it is now indisputable that Limbaugh is in an advanced stage of dementia, perhaps brought on by age, Oxy-Contin, and/or exposure to dangerous levels of Teabaggery. His abnormally enlarged ego couldn’t be helping matters either.

Feb 22 2013 5 cmnts

General, Wankery

Rush Limbaugh Is Ashamed Of America. The Feeling Is Mutual.

Posted by: Mark @ 11:05 am

In yet another example of crybaby Republicans bugging out when they don’t get their way, Rush Limbaugh is whining about how he is “ashamed” of his country.

This isn’t really anything new. Limbaugh has been in fits of hysteric embarrassment ever since America elected its first African-American president. And having done it twice hasn’t helped soothe his frayed nerves. So now he is ranting about how the country is sliding down a path to a hellish fiscal doom (also not new for Rushbo) even though the deficit has declined every year of Obama’s presidency. And this imagined impending apocalypse has so disturbed Rush that he has become racked with shame, poor thing.

Limbaugh’s pride deficiency has spread to infect his pals at Fox News.

Over at Fox Nation they think that his tantrum is just the thing to revive the Tea Party that Americans have come to hate in droves. How appropriate that they believe that shame for America will re-energize the Tea-publicans. And at the Hannity show, the rash of embarrassment is epidemic. Hannity goes off on an extended rant about how he, too, is embarrassed. Ironically, he makes a couple of good points:

“It’s embarrassing with our wealth and all that we have, that 50 million Americans are on food stamps, one in six Americans are in poverty, it’s embarrassing we import oil.”

Indeed, that is embarrassing. Too bad Hannity and his right-wing cohorts are opposed to every initiative that would address those issues. Apparently they enjoy being mired in embarrassment.

But it was Hannity’s guest, Herman Cain that totally went off the deep end by latching on to the argument that almost single-handedly sunk the Romney campaign:

“Look, 51 percent of the voters elected Barack Obama. Forty nine percent of us are not that stupid. That’s what [Rush] was saying.”

Oh, I see. Rush was saying that the majority of the nation is stupid. What a great way to invigorate Tea Partiers and win voters over. If this a preview of their campaign strategy for 2014-16, then get ready for Speaker Pelosi and President Clinton. They can recycle leftover Romney posters that said “Believe in America” by simply editing them to read “Ashamed of America.” That’s the new GOP slogan for the foreseeable future.

Jan 27 2013 15 cmnts

General, Media Bias

Obama Calls Out Fox News For Punishing Republicans When They Work With Democrats

Posted by: Mark @ 10:42 am

President Obama just sat down for a wide-ranging interview with The New Republic. In the course of the discussion he articulated what is a long-standing problem for Republican politicians that prevents them from engaging in reasonable legislative compromises. The President said…

Fox News

“One of the biggest factors is going to be how the media shapes debates. If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it.”

That is an astute observation. Many Republicans live in fear of being criticized in the conservative media. They regard people like Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh as Godfathers whose rings must be kissed. And divergence from the doctrine prescribed by the most extreme elements of the far-right can land them in primary trouble with Tea Partiers. The President also recognized that dilemma:

“The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they’re really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies.”

The result of having to cater to perpetually outraged absolutists on the right is that GOP attention whores will do or say anything that gets them more airtime. And the media is all too happy to accommodate them. Obama addressed that journalistic failing as well.

“Nobody gets on TV saying, ‘I agree with my colleague from the other party.’ People get on TV for calling each other names and saying the most outlandish things.”

That’s a theory that has been proven many times over by folks like Glenn Beck, Allen West, Donald Trump, and a menagerie of other bombastic loudmouths.

The interview is well worth reading in its entirety, however, the observations about the press and anxiety-driven Republicans are a refreshing blast of realistic insight. It is important for these truths to be articulated by the President. Now it remains to be seen if Obama will apply that insight to his actions when dealing with those in the media and the Republican Party who engage in kneejerk opposition to anything proposed by the White House or Democrats in congress. Because, as the President noted in the interview…

“Until Republicans feel that there’s a real price to pay for them just saying no and being obstructionist, you’ll probably see at least a number of them arguing that we should keep on doing it.”

Exactly! Make them pay the price. And the price is the respect and support of the American people who are sick and tired of the games played by Washington’s opportunists.

Jan 24 2013 19 cmnts

General

If [fill in the blank] Had Guns Hitler Would Have Married Gandhi On Matching Unicorns

Posted by: Mark @ 9:12 am

The Reality-Challenged Case For Arming Everyone

The conservative congregation of gun worshipers is pulling out all the stops to prevent any dialogue on gun safety and common sense measures that might protect citizens from the sort of mass carnage that has shocked Americans recently in places like Newtown, Aurora, and Tuscon. With the help of right-wing media, notably Fox News, they are promulgating fear and hostility as a response to a political difference of opinion over how to make our communities safer.

They mantra from the right is that Obama is a tyrant who will abolish the Constitution and confiscate all guns. While there is not even an inkling of evidence that any of that is true, the terrifying specter of a dictatorial slave state is flushing through the veins of pseudo-patriots who pretend to revere America and the soldiers who defend it, but are adamant that they retain sufficient firepower to massacre them if necessary. That’s how they thank our heroes for their service.

In the rhetorical battle to preserve their alleged right to carry weapons of carnage into schools and bars and laundromats and baseball stadiums, the Gunnies are now declaring that every threatened or oppressed group of people would have been better off if they had been armed to the hilt and prepared to blow away their assailants. Reality is at variance with these apocryphal claims, but that doesn’t lessen their feverish insistence that a fire-with-fire response to every conflict will bring about a peaceful, secure society. Despite the obvious contradiction in that view, conservative mouthpieces are expressing remarkably similar themes that arrive at the same conclusion: If [fill in the blank] had guns the good guys would always win and violence would become a thing of the past (er, like the wild west?). It’s a Fox Nation style argument that dispenses with truth in favor of hyperbole and historical revisionism. For instance…

If Civil Rights Activists Had Guns…

Rush Limbaugh: “If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed [to march at] Selma?”

This astonishingly blockheaded statement ignores the fact that the civil rights activists protesting segregation and discrimination in Selma, Alabama were devoted to peaceful change. They were led by Martin Luther King who was inspired by the non-violent methods practiced by Gandhi. It was a successful strategy that resulted in profound changes in both government and people’s hearts. In effect Limbaugh is expressing solidarity with the Black Panthers and suggesting that armed protesters shooting at southern sheriffs would have brought about a better result. However, the presence of guns would only have put everyone in greater danger, sapped the moral advantage of the protesters and produced more corpses all around. And Limbaugh would have been the first to condemn them for their reliance on violence.

If Slaves Had Guns…

Gun advocate Larry Ward: “If African Americans had been given the right to keep and bear arms from day one of the country’s founding, perhaps slavery might not have been a chapter in our history.”

Of course. If the slave traders had given each of their human “cargo” a musket along with their shackles they would have been able to kill off their prospective masters and enjoy life in the new world. I’m sure that Ward and the others propounding this theory would have been delighted to hear that armed slave rebellions had put folks like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in their graves before they ever got around to declaring independence from the British. Furthermore, the unorganized, disoriented, involuntary African immigrants would have had no problem dispatching the southern slave states that a civil war with the rest of the nation struggled with for years at horrendous human cost.

If Jews Had Guns…

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Fox News: “If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and ammunition that the Nazis did, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust.”

Once again, the dimwits on the right think that civilians of an oppressed minority would have managed to overcome a military power that held at bay most of the free world. Apparently Napolitano believes that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had some superpowers that, were they armed, would have made them a more ominous opponent than the Americans, the Russians, the English, and the French combined.

If Schools Had Guns…

Ann Coulter: “Only one policy has reduced these mass shootings and the number of casualties, and that is concealed carry permits. If you want to reduce the number of dead, and the number of times this is going to happen in an area, you sort of sense this, because they so often happen at public schools.”

Something that the Gunnies seem all to willing to excise from the debate is the fact that prior incidents of shootings at schools occurred despite there being armed guards present. That was the case at Columbine. It was also the case at Virginia Tech where they had a whole armed police squad on campus. Despite their best intentions, guards cannot be everywhere at once. And they also are often at a disadvantage when confronted by an assailant with a military style arsenal and bullet-proof gear who gets the jump on them.

If Teachers Had Guns…

Pat Robertson: “The truth is, if teachers had guns in classes, these shooters wouldn’t come in because they would be afraid of getting shot themselves.”

The truth is, that teachers are frequently the first victims of school shootings. The time it would take them to retrieve a weapon from a place that is safe enough for it to be stored in a classroom full of students would be plenty of time for an assailant with an AR-15 to riddle them with bullets. Robertson also forgets that most of these assaults are perpetrated by people who end up taking their own lives, so it is ridiculous to regard them as being afraid of getting shot themselves. And the presence of others with weapons certainly didn’t deter the shooter at the Ft. Hood Army base in Texas, where he certainly had reason to believe that there were other armed persons in the vicinity.

The speculative query as to whether there would have been a different outcome in any of these situations if [fill in the blank] had guns is just plain lunacy. It would be dubious under any circumstances to pretend to predict what might have occurred in these after-the-fact scenarios, but the specific examples chosen by these Gunnies demonstrate how blinded they are by their prejudices and violent, video game fantasies. The speculation could go on indefinitely. What if the women suffragettes had guns? What if the students at Kent State had guns?

What if Jesus and his disciples had guns? Pontius Pilate might have been riddled with armor-piercing bullets. There would have been no crucifixion. In fact, the soldiers and pharisees who arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane would have been slaughtered. It was there that Jesus admonished his disciple Peter, who took up his sword to defend him, saying “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” That’s a lesson the sanctimonious gun evangelists still haven’t learned 2,000 years later.

Jan 11 2013 2 cmnts

General, Wankery

Rush Limbaugh: Flu Epidemic Is “Trained Media” Making Excuses For Obama

Posted by: Mark @ 4:35 pm

In an epic rant that abandons all semblance of sanity, Rush Limbaugh today blasted media outlets that have been alerting the public to the serious nature of this year’s flu season. Already dozens of Americans have died and thousands have been hospitalized across the nation. But Limbaugh sees a conspiracy in the press to use this “phony” flu epidemic as a preemptive explanation for the coming economic collapse. He says…

“The purpose of this story is to give everybody in Washington an excuse before the flu outbreak even hits. I know that the reports of the flu outbreak are starting to trickle in now. But we do not have an epidemic yet. We may, who knows? But what’s being established now is that if and when we have a flu epidemic, that’s why the economy slowed down.”

The news that set Limbaugh off was a story published by CNBC that noted that a “Major Flu Outbreak Threatens to Slow Economy Further.” Limbaugh declared that “This headline is a made-to-order, built-in excuse to cover for slipshod economic policies out of Washington.” The article on CNBC stated correctly that…

“On average, seasonal flu outbreaks cost U.S. employers $10.4 billion in direct costs of hospitalization and outpatient visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That doesn’t include the indirect costs related to lost productivity and worker absenteeism.”

Apparently, amongst the news outlets that are serving as “trained media” for Obama is Fox News. All day they have been broadcasting warnings about how serious the flu is, including its potential cost to the economy. Neil Cavuto’s business program featured both Fox Business Network contributor, Charles Payne And Fox’s senior medical contributor, Dr. Marc Siegel, to specifically discuss the flu’s impact on business.

If it weren’t already clear that Limbaugh had degenerated into an incoherent nut case spewing delusional tales for his dimwit followers, this nonsensical commentary should remove all doubt. And his dittoheads would do well to recall what he said on election day back in November:

Jan 08 2013 6 cmnts

General, Scandalous

GOP: Greed Obsessed Profiteers – How the Right Fleeces Donors To Enrich Themselves

Posted by: Mark @ 10:40 am

The election of 2012 broke all records for spending on campaigns and collateral causes of political movers and shakers. The orgy of spending was triggered by the Citizen’s United decision allowing donors to make unlimited contributions anonymously. A by product of this landscape littered with special interest cash was a new industry driven by hucksters intent on sucking up substantial portions of the money flying around in the political ether.

One of those hucksters was the toe-sucking grifter, Dick Morris. Rachel Maddow recently reported on his scam that involved soliciting donations for a Super PAC that he claimed to have founded, and funneling those funds to his accomplices at the right wing blog Newsmax. Then NewsMax used some of that money to pay Morris for access to his email donors list so that they could solicit more donations. In effect, Morris was raising money to pay himself to raise more money.

Another example of this racket involved the Astroturf-roots, Tea Party operation, FreedomWorks. In the wake of scandalous revelations that their former chairman Dick Armey had staged an armed coup to wrest control of the group from his partners, it has been learned that the organization was taking the funds received from unsuspecting donors who opposed big government waste and depositing them in the bank accounts of wealthy broadcasters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. These payouts were ostensibly intended to buy positive promotions of FreedomWorks on their programs in order to produce more donations that could also be paid out to the promoters. It was a blatantly circular self-enrichment scheme that was also described by Armey as “ineffective” and “a mistake.”

These incidents illustrate a congenital characteristic of the conservative mindset. It is a philosophy that explicitly lauds a dog-eat-dog flavor of wealth creation and celebrates the success of ruthless entrepreneurship and Greed-Obsessed Profiteers (i.e. GOP).

At the center of this con game is Fox News and the associated right-wing media machine. The unprecedented sums of money raised and spent in the last election cycle exceeded $5 billion dollars. Of that it is estimated that $3.4 was spent on advertising. In the world of Republican politics there is only one elephant in the room when it comes to media, and that is Fox News, the number one rated cable news network (for now) and the PR division of the GOP.

Fox was the first stop on every Republican’s campaign trip. It was where groups like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity dumped the bulk of their television ad dollars. It was the TV base for Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Scott Rasmussen, and the Breitbart-affiliated activists who were pretending to be movie producers.

Fox News was running the same scam as those described above. They would provide a platform for conservative politicians and organizations to solicit donations. The organizations would then pay Fox to run their ads with the money they raised from their appearances on Fox. And round and round it goes.

This is a tactic exploited so well by Rupert Murdoch himself in the last election cycle when he donated a million dollars to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who promptly returned it to Fox in the form of ad buys. In this way Murdoch actually made a 22% profit on his donation to the Chamber, and the Chamber got their ads broadcast at a 78% discount.

The maze of campaign finance laws makes it difficult to ascertain whether or not any laws were broken by these financial shenanigans. But the Federal Elections Commission is such an impotent agency that it would be surprising if they ever bothered to investigate or punish such lawbreakers.

However, what is even more surprising is that anybody would contribute to these organizations if they knew that their donations were not being used to advance the causes they support, but instead are lining the pockets of the executives and fundraisers. It is brazen betrayal of the folks who put their hard-earned dollars to work for their beliefs. But it is also precisely what conservatives are best known for: making themselves rich at the expense of the little people.

Hysterical Addendum] Dick Armey is now claiming that when he spoke with Media Matters and made his remarks about FreedomWorks, and their wasting money on Beck and Limbaugh, he actually thought he was talking to the uber-rightist Media Research Center. That explains his candor. He clearly believed that those comments would never be made public by MRC.

Nov 08 2012 2 cmnts

General

Rush Limbaugh: So Wrong

Posted by: Mark @ 3:23 pm

Some of the best arguments against Rush Limbaugh come straight from his own mouth…

“I could be proven tonight to be so wrong and so all wet that nobody should be listening to me.”

That’s a remarkably candid observation. And one that turned out to be accurate. Although most clear thinking individuals have known for years that nobody should be listening to Limbaugh, now his own listeners have heard for themselves that he is unworthy of their time and attention. Even Limbaugh doesn’t take himself seriously. Take for example this post-election commentary:

“[P]eople have been asking me how I feel all night long. And I got, ‘Boy, Rush, I wouldn’t want to be you tomorrow. Boy, I wouldn’t want to have to do your show. Boy, I’m so glad I’m not you.’ Well, folks, I love being me. I can’t be anybody else, so I’m stuck with it. But the way I feel is this:

I feel liberated, and I’m just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. [...] Now, I’m liberated from having to constantly come in here every day and try to buck up a bunch of people who don’t deserve it, to try to carry the water and make excuses for people who don’t deserve it. I just – I did not want to sit here and participate, willingly, in the victory of the libs, in the victory of the Democrat Party by sabotaging my own. But now with what has happened yesterday and today, it is an entirely liberating thing.”

What a relief it must be for him to no longer have to pretend to back posers he doesn’t really support, just because he feels he needs to prop up the GOP, despite the fact that he doesn’t think they deserve it. In this statement he makes it clear that he would never allow himself to be that cynical and dishonest with his audience ever again.

Except for one thing. He made that statement following the election in 2006 when the Democrats swept the GOP out of power in the congress. Apparently his commitment to never carrying water for those who don’t deserve it was short lived. His obsession with bashing Democrats, even if he has to lie to his audience about Republicans, takes precedence over what he once called his liberation. That demonstrates the shallowness of Limbaugh’s character, and it is yet another reason that nobody should listen to him.

Oct 09 2012 3 cmnts

General, Propaganda

UNHINGED: The Crackpot Conspiracy Theories Of Clueless Conservatives

Posted by: Mark @ 4:01 am

This article was also published on Alternet.

Conservatives and professional Obama haters have been nurturing an animosity for Obama that far exceeds anything directed at previous presidents. The lengths that they will go to bury Obama in mud often resemble D-Movie spy plots that set new standards for implausibility. The all too familiar birther conspiracies that allege that President Obama is a Manchurian socialist bent on transforming America into an Islamic Caliphate are mere fairy tales when compared to some of the horror stories that shiver the spines of the delusional right.

The frequency and outlandishness of their conspiratorial imaginations grows in sync with their desperation. With Obama leading in most polls and the election season drawing to a close, it seems like a good time to recap some of the more ludicrous conspiracies hatched by our conservative fear mongers. So with our tin-foil hats securely strapped on, let’s venture down the primrose path of hair-raising hypothesis.

Cooking the Unemployment Rate
The most recent crackpottery of the right was revealed last week as new unemployment numbers were released. The new data put the unemployment rate at 7.8%, the lowest it has been since the Bush administration cratered the economy on their way out of town. Almost immediately, right-wingers declared that the numbers were manufactured by Obama’s henchmen in the Labor Department. Never mind the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is an independent body that currently has no Obama appointees serving. That didn’t stop conspiracists like Jack Welch from alleging that they are “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.” That unsubstantiated charge was adopted by Rep. Allen West, Fox News’ Stuart Varney, and much of the rest of the right-wing media circus.

The Media is Skewing the Polls
For several weeks now, Obama has maintained a steady lead in election polling. That fact has been difficult for conservatives to square with their conviction that Obama is the most hated man in America. Consequently, they must conclude that all of the polls have been tampered with by scheming liberals. However, for their conspiracy to be credible, they would have to include Fox News and Rasmussen amongst the conniving lefties because their polling also puts Obama in the lead. One way they have found to workaround that inconvenient fact is to ignore the polls that challenge their thesis. Therefore, Fox News simply neglects to report on polls that show the President leading – even their own Fox News polls.

Politicizing the Stock Market
In a year when the economy is such an integral part of the news cycle, conservatives have found it necessary to glom onto any factoid that they can use to bash the President. That manifests into a frenzy of spin that casts any decline in the stock market as the fault of Obama, and any increase as investor speculation that Obama is on the way out. Last week, many of the right-dominated business networks feebly described a positive day for the Dow as a Romney rally, simply because it occurred on the day after the presidential debate. There is a long history of the right making idiotic assessments of the stock market. In May of 2009, Fox News anchor Brenda Buttner gushed, “Call it a tea party rally. Wall Street’s sure partying, up six weeks in a row.” In September of 2011, Fox Nation reported “Stocks Tumble Worldwide After Obama Speech.” Then in June of 2012, they fantasized that “Stock Market Drops After Obamacare Upheld.” Fox’s Neil Cavuto hosted a discussion of what he called the “Bush recovery” nine months into Obama’s term. What they commonly miss is that markets traditionally perform better under Democratic administrations than Republicans.

Obama is Coming for Your Guns
This conspiracy theory takes a considerable measure of willful suspension of disbelief. The National Rifle Association has alerted its members that a second Obama term will result in the repeal of the second amendment and a wholesale confiscation of guns. Their evidence of this is that Obama has done nothing at all to roll back gun rights during his first term. That, they surmise, is a devious trick to lull gun rights advocates into a false sense of security. Then, when Obama is no longer facing a reelection campaign, he will be free to curtail all of our precious liberties.

The Social Security Administration’s Arms Cache
When it was discovered that the Social Security Administration had purchased 174,000 bullets, the right-wing sirens went off and presumed that they were preparing for massive civil unrest and intended to use the ammo on Americans. “‘Why would the U.S. government want the SSA to kill 174,000 of our citizens, even during a time of civil unrest?’ Maj. Gen. Jerry Curry wrote on the conservative website The Daily Caller.” That would be a good question if it weren’t rooted in utter dementia. In fact, the actual reason for the purchase was a routine acquisition to arm conventional security personnel at the agency’s offices across the country.

The Muslim Mole in the Secretary of State’s Office
A longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton was accused by conservatives of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Huma Abedin has worked with Clinton for many years as a trusted and effective public servant. No evidence was given for the repugnant allegations that cast her as a traitorous double agent. She is also married to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, who is Jewish and unlikely to be affiliated with Muslim extremists. But that didn’t stop Rep. Michele Bachmann who said, “it appears that there are individuals who are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood who have positions, very sensitive positions” in our government. She was joined by other prominent conservatives like Newt Gingrich and Frank Gaffney. This conspiracy dove-tails nicely with those alleging that Obama is a Muslim plant as well.

Fact-Checkers Are A Liberal Plot
Creative and shameless conservatives are establishing a new and unique front in the political war zone. Not satisfied with bashing everything about the media (despite the fact that talk radio and their own Fox News are a huge part of it), the wackoids on the right have declared war against – get this – Fact-checkers! This may seem wildly deranged, but upon reflection it makes perfect sense. If your entire movement is built on a foundation of lies, then fact-checkers are your mortal enemy. This became clear a few weeks ago when Neil Newhouse, a Mitt Romney adviser, publicly declared that “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Since then they have disputed or ignored every challenge of their truthfulness. The result is a record setting collection of dishonorable mentions from PolitiFact and other media lie detectors.

The Secret Behind The Gulf Oil Spill
When millions of barrels of oil were pouring into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, most Americans were disturbed by the devastating environmental damage and the negligence of the company operating the drilling platform. But conservatives led by Rush Limbaugh saw through the scheme and revealed that the massive malfunction was actually a deliberate act of sabotage devised to create a justification for eliminating all off-shore drilling. Limbaugh told his audience that “I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig … What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig?” You can’t argue with logic like that, because it’s the logic of a mad man who thinks the President would murder twelve workers and foul an environmentally sensitive region in order to achieve a political goal.

Obamacare’s Death Panels
No list of conspiracy theories would be complete without a mention of Sarah Palin’s “death panels.” These nefarious groups were said to have the power to decide whether your grandmother would live or die based on her level of productivity to society as determined by a team of government bureaucrats. In reality the section of the Affordable Care Act to which Palin referred actually provided for coverage to pay for end-of-life counseling. These were voluntary sessions to help patients determine and document what sort of life-saving measures they preferred in the event that they were incapacitated and unable to communicate their wishes to their doctors. When that proved to be an embarrassing misinterpretation of the law, conservatives switched to another section of the bill, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, and called that the death panel. However, the IPAB was simply a board that assessed the best practices in medicine and made non-binding recommendations in order to prevent excessive billing and unnecessary procedures. Palin was awarded the “Lie of the Year” award from PolitiFact for her imaginary panel.

The Green Plot to Enslave the World
Conservatives have never taken to science. So it should come as no surprise that many of them regard global warming as a hoax whose purpose is to enrich Al Gore and a few socialist wind farmers. But there is another faction of the anti-environment movement that has uncovered something even more dastardly lurking behind the effort to maintain a clean, sustainable planet. Agenda 21, a little known and non-binding resolution adopted by the United Nations is viewed by some on the right as an attempt to control the lives of people throughout the world by regulating everything they do. Amongst their paranoid fears is that Agenda 21 will cede U.S. sovereignty to the U.N. and a one-world government. The truth is that Agenda 21 is a set of principles to guide the development of practices to preserve a sustainable environment for future generations. It is entirely voluntary and was agreed to by the U.N. in 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush. But to hear doomsayers like Glenn Beck put it, it will “suck all the blood out of [our communities], and we will not be able to survive.”

These are but a few of the tales woven by angst-ridden right-wingers in the dark moments when their thoughts wander from rational reality. However, the science that they scorn may have an explanation for their fantastical imaginings. Ryota Kanai, at the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, examined how liberals and conservatives brains differ. Among the findings were that the brains of liberals have a larger anterior cingulate cortex which has been shown to produce thought proceses that are more flexible and reliant on data, proof, and analytic reasoning. Conservatives are more likely to have an enlarged amygdala which is associated with greater inflexibility, emotion, and fear response.

This could account for conservatives having a greater susceptibility to conspiracy models of thinking. Whatever the explanation, it is clear that their senses are working overtime and the results produce some pretty wild visions of nightmarish liberals threatening America’s very existence. They seem to have taken very seriously the warning from the Reagan-era horror film, The Fly: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sep 11 2012 6 cmnts

Election, General

Rush Limbaugh’s Predictable Predictions

Posted by: Mark @ 9:49 am

Yesterday talk radio’s king of drug-addled asininity, Rush Limbaugh, settled into his paranoid dementia to dispense his predictions of a future wherein democracy is carried out and President Obama retains his residency of the White House. Limbaugh has a well known disgust for democracy if its results are not to his liking. But yesterday he let loose with a dire forecast that must surely have rattled the marbles inside his followers dittoheads.

9/10/2012: “If Obama’s re-elected, it will happen. There’s no IF about this. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be gut-wrenching, but it will happen. The country’s economy is going to collapse if Obama is re-elected.”

Uh oh. What ever will we do now? Limbaugh has divined the course of our destruction and there appears to be no way out other than casting our votes for Mitt Romney, a man who will not tell us what his plans are for the economy; will not release his tax returns; will not disclose his wealthy campaign bundlers; will not stick with the same position for more than a couple of hours; and has a record of destroying jobs while bankrupting companies and stashing his ill-gotten gains in foreign banks. Yeah, that’ll save us.

And, as we know, Limbaugh’s predictions are so accurate that we absolutely must heed his every word. We know that his vision of certain doom is looming over us because his prior prognostications have been so on target. Two days after Obama was elected in 2008, Limbaugh said…

9/6/2008: “The Obama recession is in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. Stocks are dying, which is a precursor of things to come. This is an Obama recession. Might turn into a depression. He hasn’t done anything yet but his ideas are killing the economy. His ideas are killing Wall Street.”

That was two days after the election. Obama was still two months from being inaugurated. And since then the stock market has died to the tune of more than doubling in value. The ideas that killed Wall Street worked so thoroughly that anyone who invested when Limbaugh made those remarks must feel like they’ve died and gone to heaven.

There is another prediction that Limbaugh made yesterday in the same rant. This one is more pointedly political but just as important to our nation’s well being going forward:

9/10/2012: “[Chris] Matthews was saying…if Obama wins it’s the end of conservatism. Nope. If Obama wins let me tell you what it’s the end of … the Republican Party.”

You promise? We can only hope and pray that you’re right about that one.

Jun 04 2012 3 cmnts

Election, General

GOP Chairman Rush Limbaugh Chides Democrats For Straying From Message

Posted by: Mark @ 7:52 pm

In an exercise of Olympian hypocrisy, Rush Limbaugh, the de facto chairman of the Republican Party, spent much of his radio program today lambasting Democrats who he alleges have gotten off message or, even worse, “endorsed” Mitt Romney. Chairman Rush’s unique and dishonest means of expressing this observation is to say that the offending Democrat was “taken to the woodshed.”

“So it looks like Bill Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, was taken to the woodshed. Bill Clinton was taken to the Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed for endorsing Romney last week. You’ve got to wonder, what is in this woodshed to get so many people to change their tunes so quickly? It’s gotta be a pretty big woodshed. All these Democrats have been taken to the woodshed. In Clinton’s case, it could almost be anything in that woodshed: pictures, stained dresses. The mind boggles.”

Oh boy, is that Rush fella a barrel of laughs, or what? Although, I haven’t figured out exactly what he’s talking about when he says “All these Democrats…” The only ones that Chairman Rush identifies are Clinton and Booker, and neither of them were taken to a woodshed, or anywhere else. They have always been, and continue to be strong supporters of President Obama. Clinton even said that if Romney were elected it would be “a calamity for the country and the world.” I suppose that’s what Chairman Rush considers an endorsement because, on the GOP side, so many of Romney’s supporters have been achingly public about how much they hate him. It was Newt Gingrich who called Romney a “Massachusetts Moderate.” And Rick Perry called him a “Vulture Capitalist.”

But the really striking departure from reality for Chairman Rush is that no one exemplifies the persona of a strongman dictator better than Rush himself. Last year there were several high-ranking GOP leaders who were called to come before their master and grovel for forgiveness. They included Michael Steele, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Darrel Issa, Mark Sanford, Phil Gingrey, and even Sarah Palin, who excused Rush’s use of the word “retard,” so long as it was used against liberals.

Even if what Limbaugh is saying were true, it would not be particularly surprising for the President to express his desire that his surrogates be aligned with his agenda. He is the candidate and the leader of the party. However, it is appallingly inappropriate for a radio loudmouth to make actual politicians cower before him and seek his blessing. Limbaugh may think he’s cute with his “Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed” business, but it’s Limbaugh who invented the concept and still demands that Republicans subject themselves to his dominance or face the “Rush Limbaugh Memorial Waterboard Shed.” And the sad part is that the Republicans so willingly acquiesce to Limbaugh’s authority.

May 09 2012 4 cmnts

General, Wankery

Rush Limbaugh Affiliates Losing Millions As Advertisers Flee

Posted by: Mark @ 2:14 am

When Rush Limbaugh called law student Sandra Fluke a slut he may not have grasped how expensive his despicable misogyny would be. Yesterday Politico reported that the CEO of Cumulus Media revealed that…

…the advertiser boycott against Rush Limbaugh cost his company millions of dollars in revenue for the first two quarters of the year.

“It hit us pretty hard,” [Lew} Dickey said during a call with financial analysts yesterday. “A couple of million bucks in the first quarter and a couple of million bucks in quarter two.”

Thirty-eight Cumulus-owned radio stations currently carry Limbaugh’s show. The public admission that the cost of the advertiser exodus has reached into the millions directly contradicts Limbaugh’s transparently phony assertions that the defections have had no effect on him. Limbaugh is broadcast on about 600 stations nationwide. If the loss at 38 stations runs into the millions, extrapolate what the losses must be across the whole Limbaugh network of 600 stations.

Coincidentally, the same day that news broke of the costly repercussions of Limbaugh’s beastly behavior, Limbaugh announced the launch of his response to the controversy. In an attempt to prove that he does not hate and disparage women, he created “Rush Babes for America.” That’s right, Limbaugh’s way of demonstrating his respect for women is to start a self-promotional campaign that disparages women right in the name. Perhaps we should be thankful he didn’t call it FemiNazis for America.

Mar 22 2012 12 cmnts

General

Bill Maher Misfires On Free Speech

Posted by: Mark @ 1:14 pm

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Bill Maher addressed the ongoing controversy over civility (or the lack thereof) by public figures in broadcasting, entertainment, and politics. As might be expected, the comedian had a few prime punchlines dispersed throughout the piece that essentially argued in favor of offensive speech. For instance:

“The right side of America is mad at President Obama because he hugged the late Derrick Bell, a law professor who believed we live in a racist country, 22 years ago; the left side of America is mad at Rush Limbaugh for seemingly proving him right.”

The article began by correctly pointing out that a joke by Robert De Niro about whether the country was ready for a white first lady was wholly non-offensive and any umbrage taken was purposefully faked by people who “pretend to be outraged about nothing.” But, unfortunately, Maher went further to propose what he thinks would be an appropriate response to actual hate speech:

“If you see or hear something you don’t like in the media, just go on with your life. Turn the page or flip the dial or pick up your roll of quarters and leave the booth.”

Maher’s position seems to be that free speech is exercised only by the first person to speak. If that person says something that offends someone else, the obligation of the offendee is to clam up and walk away. I couldn’t disagree more.

Free speech is a right granted to everyone, and the exercise of it is not limited to whoever gets to the microphone first. Responding to the comments of others with whom you disagree is still protected speech and is a part of the great tradition of open discourse in America. If Rush Limbaugh calls a law student a slut, it is entirely appropriate for people offended by that to respond, criticize, and even engage in protests and boycotts. The same is true for those offended by Maher. That is not censorship – it is the complete realization of the meaning of the First Amendment.

In short, you have the right to speak freely. But you do not have the right to be free from criticism for anything stupid that comes out when doing so.

Maher closes his article by saying that he doesn’t “want to live in a country where no one ever says anything that offends anyone.” Neither do I. But I also don’t want to live in a country where no ever talks back when people incite racial division, or lie about important public policies, or insult civic-minded women and other citizens who only seek to participate in the affairs of their communities.

As usual, the pimply-faced editors at the Fox Nation continue to demonstrate their most juvenile tendencies by, once again, referring to Maher with an insulting epithet: Pig Maher Calls for Truce. First of all, Maher did not call for a truce. In fact, he called for continuing to use controversial language but advising people not to get upset about it. Secondly, isn’t it cute the way the Fox Nationalists use a story about toning down uncivil rhetoric by using uncivil rhetoric in their headline? And these people want to be regarded as legitimate “news.”

Mar 22 2012 12 cmnts

Free Press, Wankery

Not So Breitbart: Branding Sandra Fluke A Retroactive Public Figure

Posted by: Mark @ 4:25 am

The legacy of Andrew Breitbart is safe in the hands of those who have assumed control of his Internet enterprise. It’s that legacy of lies, defamation, and ignorance, that endures in articles like the one posted yesterday that asserts that Sandra Fluke was a public figure when Rush Limbaugh broadcast a vile commentary that referred to her as a slut and a prostitute. And thus, she is fair game for libelous attacks.

It is rather dumbfounding that even after Limbaugh made an (insincere and weak) expression of regret, even after his advertisers have abandoned him in droves, apologists like the Breitbrats are still defending his boorish misogyny.

The column by William Bigelow begins by mocking President Obama for advocating public discourse “that doesn’t involve you being demeaned and insulted. Particularly when you’re a private citizen.” Bigelow then makes the argument that there is a legal basis for Fluke to be considered a public figure. He cites a Supreme Court opinion in the case of Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., which addressed the standards of libel for defamatory statements. In refuting the representation of Fluke as a private citizen, Bigelow wrote…

“According to the Supreme Court in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974), public figures include those who ‘have thrust themselves into the forefront of particular public controversies in order to influence the resolution of the issues involved … they invite attention and comment.’”

Consistent with the Breitbartian proclivity for misrepresentation and taking edited content out of context, Bigelow deliberately quoted a brief portion of the opinion that described a commonly held view of what might constitute a public figure, but he left out the conclusive language that found that the plaintiff was not, in fact, a public person:

“We would not lightly assume that a citizen’s participation in community and professional affairs rendered him a public figure for all purposes. Absent clear evidence of general fame or notoriety in the community, and pervasive involvement in the affairs of society, an individual should not be deemed a public personality for all aspects of his life.”

The court found definitively that Gertz, was not a public figure. Nevertheless, Bigelow cites this case to try to prove that Fluke, who was unknown to the public when she was prohibited from appearing before a congressional committee hearing that almost nobody would have seen anyway, was a public figure.

It is not the least bit surprising that Bigelow chose this particular case with which to deceive his readers. The plaintiff, Elmer Gertz, was an attorney who had represented the family of man who was murdered by a Chicago police officer. The respondent, Robert Welch, Inc., is better known as the John Birch Society, a virulently racist and McCarthyesque anti-communist organization. I’m sure that the Breitbrats have a great affinity for the Birchers.

Next Bigelow makes a bold attempt to assert that Sarah Palin is not a public figure. Seriously! Sarah Palin, who was governor of Alaska and a candidate for Vice-President of the United States. Sarah Palin who is currently a Fox News political analyst and still floats hints of running for office. Bigelow contends that “Palin was just as much a private citizen as Fluke,” because she is no longer a governor. Sometimes the addled logic of these cretins is physically painful.

What apparently set Bigelow off on all of this is a statement Fluke made at a forum in Washington, D.C., where she said…

“Numerous American women have actually written to me in the last few weeks saying that I should run for office, and maybe someday I will.”

To which Bigelow sarcastically added, “Sandra Fluke. Private citizen. Yeah, right.” So it was that statement on which Bigelow based the entire premise of his article, as well as his assertion that Fluke was a public figure, even at the time that Limbaugh broadcast his attack. And that was all that was necessary for him to jump to the absurd conclusion that Fluke was somehow retroactively a public figure because weeks afterwards she would speculate that “someday” she “might” run for office.

What is really amazing about this is that anyone actually regards the Breitbrats as having any credibility whatsoever. After their promotion of deceitfully edited videos about ACORN, Shirley Sherrod, etc.; after their embarrassing episode with Hug-Gate, the Derrick Bell non-scandal; and now this incoherent excuse to prop up their hero Rush Limbaugh despite nearly universal condemnation of his abhorrent behavior, the fact that there are still some people who pay any attention at all to the Breitbrats is a sad commentary on a certain sector of the human race.

Mar 14 2012 2 cmnts

General

Rush Limbaugh: Digging Sarah Palin Up From The Grave

Posted by: Mark @ 11:01 am

In a desperate play for attention, Rush Limbaugh has taken to defending Fox News analyst Sarah Palin, who was recently the subject of a Democratic fundraising video. However, the form of Limbaugh’s defense may be not be particularly complimentary.

Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh: Barack Obama is running a re-elect ad against Sarah Palin who is not running. So it’s time now for them to have a new demon. In this case, they’ve got to go back to the graveyard, dig Sarah Palin back up.

The graveyard? I wonder how Palin’s Facebook ghost writers will respond to this insult. Limbaugh is echoing the same sentiment that Fox News expressed yesterday on their Fox Nation web site when they complained that “Four years later, President Obama is still running against Sarah Palin.” The general consensus among these conservatives is that Palin is a has-been who is not worthy of attention, despite her current employment by Fox News and her hints that she would accept the GOP nomination for president at a brokered convention.

Limbaugh continued his remarks regarding Palin to assert that there is conspiracy to demean the woman he regards as irrelevant:

“And it’s bouncing off of the HBO movie, Game Change. Which is all part of the plan. It’s all part of a brilliantly conceived plan that they hope will be a flawlessly executed plan. Now they’ve got the movie based on the book, Game Change. And it makes Palin and all these Republicans look like idiots. The heroes in that movie are the people who are portrayed as knowing Palin was the wrong choice, and admitting that Palin’s stupid.”

For the record, the characterization of Palin in the book and movie, Game Change, has been affirmed by the Republican campaign strategists for McCain/Palin and her own handlers. If there is a conspiracy it is being orchestrated from the right, not the White House.

The real problem that Limbaugh is dealing with is his own irrelevancy. In the past couple of weeks he has lost more than a hundred advertisers due to his boorish misogyny. His show is running with cheap local ads, free public service announcements, and even dead air. Nevertheless, Limbaugh and his supporters are steadfast in their insistence that none of this has hurt Limbaugh or his show. Fox Nation posted an article claiming, without any evidence whatsoever, that he has “Has the Biggest Audience He’s Had in Years.” But we’ve heard that kind of denial before:

Mar 12 2012 8 cmnts

General

Fox Nation’s War on Women: Sarah Palin vs. Jane Fonda

Posted by: Mark @ 12:44 pm

I am now firmly convinced that the Fox Nation web site is edited by a high school intern. When you consider the absurdly hyperbolic verbs that animate their headlines (i.e. “Cheney’s Daughter Annihilates MSNBC Anchor”), and their infantile pet names for people they don’t like (i.e. “Pig” Maher), the only conclusion is that either they have recruited from a remedial program at a local high school or Fox has implemented an IQ cap of 95 for all employees (so as not to exceed Fox celebrity Sean Hannity).

Today the Fox Nationalists are featuring a story about a video produced by President Obama’s reelection campaign committee. The video (below) addresses comments made last week by Sarah Palin that accuse the President of wanting to take the country back to the days before the civil war.

Palin: “What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.”

As usual, Palin’s comment makes perfect sense if you are suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations while in the midst of an alien abduction. Otherwise, you probably can’t help but laugh at the notion that America’s first black president wants to return to the days when he would have been shackled in chains and traded in slave markets.

The item posted on Fox Nation was accompanied by text that declared with astonishment that, “Four years later, President Obama is still running against Sarah Palin.” What makes this particularly amusing is that a little further down the page, Fox Nation’s juvenile and incompetent editor also posted this item: Hanoi Jane Says Fire Nazi Limbaugh. The article referenced in the title was an editorial Jane Fonda co-wrote with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. The article never called Limbaugh a Nazi, although it did criticize Limbaugh for using such rhetoric against his opponents.

“Limbaugh doesn’t just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames — and the bigger the lie, the more effective — inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, ‘femi-Nazi,’ doesn’t even raise eyebrows anymore”

So according to the Fox Nationalists there is something profoundly odd about responding to Sarah Palin because she was a candidate for vice-president four whole years ago, but making a big fuss about Jane Fonda’s adventures in Vietnam forty years ago (for which she later expressed genuine regret) is perfectly reasonable. The absurdity of that distinction is obvious. But it should also be noted that Fonda is a celebrity who makes movies and occasionally comments on public affairs, while Palin is currently a Fox News political analyst and still a potential candidate for office (she recently said that she would be open to being drafted as the Republican presidential nominee at the GOP convention).

And yet, the pimply-faced editor of Fox Nation thinks that engaging with Palin is a throwback to a bygone era and one of its most inconsequential and meaningless characters. He seems to regard Palin as a has-been who deserves to be ignored. He may just have a point.

Mar 11 2012 1 cmnts

Free Press, Humor

Rupert Murdoch’s Birthday Wish To His Staff: STFU You Wankers!

Posted by: Mark @ 3:54 am

Congratulations are in order for Mr. Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corp, who turns 81 today. However, as he surveys the empire that he built he must be bitterly disappointed with the tunnel-blind miscreants he employs. Their obsessive, knee-jerk hostility to all things liberal has clouded their judgment in ways that harm the very interests they are being paid to serve. The result is a rash of friendly fire from within the ranks of Murdoch’s menagerie.

The first casualty is a victim in the Limbaugh-induced war of indecency. Intent on spreading blame to everyone but Limbaugh, Fox News has embarked on a crusade against any liberal (or perceived liberal) who may have said something controversial. It commenced with a Fox favorite for vilification, Bill Maher, but has now extended to comedian Louis CK. Fox News host Greta Van Susteren was so incensed that Louis CK was tapped to provide the comic relief at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner that she publicly protested, called him a pig, and declared that she was initiating a boycott of the event. Subsequently, Louis CK dropped the gig. This is an unwelcome birthday gift for Rupert because the comedian also happens to be the star of “Louis” on his FX cable channel.

Next up is the battle between Fox News contributors. Tucker Carlson, one of said contributors, wrote an editorial on his DailyCaller blog that attempted to illustrate a hypocrisy in the media coverage of the Limbaugh controversy. Unfortunately, Carlson chose to include in his example the former LAPD officer Mark Furhman, who is best known for his use of racial epithets that was disclosed during the OJ Simpson trial. Carlson mocked Furhman as a pariah who is probably out of work, and deservedly so because “Nobody wants to be seen with a bigot.” The problem is that Furhman is actually employed by the same Fox News that employs Carlson. So not only is Carlson seen with Furhman, they are colleagues. All one big happy family of bigots. That can’t be making Rupert’s birthday any more joyful.

This is just the sort of thing that can occur when people are so blinded by their prejudices that they lose all sight of anything but their determination to harm their perceived enemies. The ultimate example of this mental defect occurred when Glenn Beck called Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal a terrorist. Alwaleed is the second largest shareholder of News Corp stock outside of the Murdoch family, and a close friend and business partner of Murdoch.

So anyway, happy birthday, Rupert. And good luck with that loathsome collection of reprobates you call a news team.