I saw this in a local coffee shop yesterday–it’s for a couple of third-tier religious/talk-radio stations, one of which headlines Michael Savage. This is where Rush is headed if he keeps it up. The scorecard on his advertisers is brutal. He’s lost six, including Carbonite backup, who dropped him last night after his lame apology and did it with a tough statement from the CEO:
No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady. Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse.
People have been boycotting Rush forever, and obviously Carbonite didn’t give a shit about civilized public discourse then, which makes the politics of this very interesting. First, Obama’s call had to be a tipping point, and it was a pitch perfect way to criticize Rush without getting down in the muck with him. Second, with the current state of the Republican party, there’s no need to worry about them meeting us halfway on any issue. Here’s a bit of claim chowder from Amanda Marcotte that’s still fresh:
“Some women aren’t even taking the birth control pill for contraception! They need it for cramps/endometriosis/etc.”
Every time you say this, a right winger wanting to imply that women who have sex for pleasure are sluts gets his wings. This statement and all variations on it feeds into the right wing claim that a) contraception is not health care and b) that women who have sex for pleasure are so indefensible that you have to lean on off-label uses for a contraceptive drug to justify its existence. It also does absolutely nothing to defend the non-pill contraception that’s covered by the health care act, such as IUDs or sterilization. Plus, that gives them an easy out, which is to say that they’re fine with insurance covering pills that are prescribed for non-contraception use, but just object to prescriptions for women who use them to prevent pregnancy.
I don’t disagree with the ideology of that post, but in hindsight the politics are wrong. Fluke’s testimony, as John pointed out, was all about the use of the pill for ovarian cysts. It didn’t matter, she was still called a slut, but the extreme reasonableness of Fluke’s position made Rush look even more unreasonable. Marcotte’s critique is sort of the flip side of Obama’s attempt to draw the Republicans into compromise over healthcare reform or deficit reduction. In each case, the underlying wrong assumption is that Republicans will make a politically smart compromise to advance their agenda. Any argument that makes that assumption in the 2012 campaign should be immediately suspect.
jo6pac
Yep maybe this is what will the fat guys down fall and it hurts willard also since his investment comp. owns clear channel. The company that ruined more radio stations and concert venues than I can count.
MattF
I disagree. It’s important to keep repeating the fact that every pregnancy, including every ‘normal’ one, is a health issue. Of course, all women know that, but sluts like Limbaugh just don’t get it. And that’s a political win for reality-based health care.
Linda Featheringill
I’d like to see somebody try to hold Romney at least partially responsible for Limbaugh. That would probably be a futile exercise but it would be fun to watch even so.
chopper
yeah, i gotta agree that the fact that fluke’s testimony was all about those off-label uses is kinda central to this whole thing, at least in terms of pointing out how crazy the goopers are being. it really gets to the point that no matter how they want to make it about something else like ‘religious liberty’ it really is all about slut shaming with these guys, despite the fact that she didn’t say a thing about her own sex life or if she’s even on the pill at all.
yet it’s true that in the larger argument leaning on those as a main defense of contraception appears to be ceding the field to the junior anti-sex league.
JPL
The war on women continues.
reflectionephemeral
I think you’re making a slightly different point than Marcotte. You’re arguing that the noncontroversial nature of Fluke’s advocacy made her attackers even less defensible than they would’ve been otherwise– which is true enough.
Marcotte, I think, is making the broader cultural point that in debate & conversation, we should be sure not to implicitly concede Limbaugh’s “argument”: that people on birth control to prevent conception are doing something bad or shameful.
If I’ve accurately got those 2 positions, then I think you’re both right.
reflectionephemeral
Her attackers were “even less defensible” politically, as in this CEO’s statement, I meant.
JPL
@Linda Featheringill: Maureen Dowd’s column mentioned that she would like to know what word Romney would use if that’s what he found offensive.
lonesomerobot
@reflectionephemeral: By all means, don’t talk about what positions you’ve got. Rush will call you a slut.
cathyx
I hope Rush defends himself some more on his show on Monday. Maybe the rest of the advertisers will leave.
Southern Beale
Carbonite also advertises on liberal talk shows — Thom Hartmann, Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz all do spots for them. I wonder if that played into their decision in any way?
chopper
@MattF:
right. both the regular use of the pill, as well as these ‘off-label’ uses, are both intended to perform the same basic function: prevention of an unwanted medical condition.
if people, in the larger argument, make it all about things like ovarian cysts some chump in the senate is going to call our bluff and cough up some turd of a bill allowing a religious or personal ‘moral exemption’ for paying for the pill except in uses like preventing ovarian cysts etc. then suddenly we’re shifting gears and arguing that it really is all about sexual freedom.
besides, as long as the argument is about basic access to contraception we win. that’s why limbaugh stepped in it. the GOP has been trying desperately to turn the argument towards religious freedom but the big names in the party just can’t help but yell at some sluts.
BigWoodenSpoon
I’m impressed – every word on that sign is spelled correctly.
cathyx
@reflectionephemeral: I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of women who take the pill are married.
Hal
But I feel like this shouldn’t even have to be the emphasized point. So what if women use birth control to avoid pregnancy while having sex? The massive hypocrisy coming from the right is that they are all having sex, most are probably using birth control, and those who have jobs with health insurance may in fact be getting that birth control free.
This year in particular highlights how absolutely desperate and out of touch Republicans have become. Horrible candidates, horrific choices in which issues to highlight, and some amazing limp ass attacks on the President.
At this point, all the GOP can do is promise $2.50 gas and to take away women’s birth control.
Southern Beale
Today’s blogwhore: my take on the Mormon church’s baptism of the dead thing. It’s a personal story.
Amir Khalid
There are still some who don’t get it. I just saw this headline on Yahoo News:
Here’s a headline that says the same thing without repeating the insult:
lonesomerobot
That sign picture just makes me wonder what the whackjobs thought the timing of Obama’s inevitable destruction of America was supposed to be. I mean, Breitbart supposedly had this bombshell tape and everything; and the point still seems to be to stop Obama from imposing New World Order or dictatorship or taking all our guns (all of the above?). But we were told in 2008 that Obama was the Manchurian Candidate and had the New Black Panthers and the black- and brownshirts all lined up to turn this place into Socialist Nazi Germany faster than John McCain could recall how many houses he owned.
Well? Dude’s in the 4th year of his presidency. Any plan to destroy America by the man who pals around with terrorists would have to be enacted a bit more efficiently than that, wouldn’t it? Or do you slow-walk the whole despotic tyranny thing until you barely win reelection? It just doesn’t seem to be playing out like they all hoped… er, I mean feared. Either that or Bill Ayers must be some kind of super-genius.
lonesomerobot
@Amir Khalid: Yesterday they were giving the Breitbart conspiracy theories some play as well. Nice going, Yahoo.
chopper
@cathyx:
yeah, i would love to see some ads targeting married women on the pill (and there are a hell of a lot of them out there), telling them in big bold letters that the GOP thinks they’re all nasty sluts and prostitutes.
Michael
Carbonite CEO:
That’s sweet, but he’s obviously not familiar with the Peak Wingnut theory; and with the general election season still months away, no, we haven’t reached it yet.
Donut
I like that Axelrod is needling Romney via Twitter about Rush, and I believe Obama should continue to give a full-throated embrace of championing women’s health issues, not to mention standing up for that old radical idea that women are people and all – but I agree the phone call to Fluke was pitch-perfect and the president doesn’t need to say much more, definitely should say nothing at all about Limbaugh.
It’s time for activists to not just go after Rush’s sponsors. Time to go after the stations that carry him and the show’s distribution company.
The whale of Rush’s career is listing, lost, wounded and heading for the beach. This is no time to let up.
JGabriel
FYI, Y’all:
White House Petition to remove Limbaugh’s show from Armed Forces Radio.
.
chopper
@JPL:
as much as modo is a moron, this would be an excellent direct question for a reporter to ask mittens. if only.
Frank
@Southern Beale:
It really is amusing. Mormons believe that being gay is a choice but on the other hand they won’t allow people’s choice not to be Mormons to stay after they are dead.
I shouldn’t say amusing. It is revolting. I am assuming and hoping that if Romney is their nominee that there will be much more spotlight on this issue.
Linda Featheringill
The real issue, of course, is agency, the ability/power/right to make decisions for yourself.
In this case, it’s about agency for women and their partners, people who aren’t rich and aren’t powerful, wanting to make decisions based on what they think is best for them.
Women who claim the right of agency for themselves are often called sluts or something like that. I suspect they used to be called witches. Men who find themselves outside of the dominant group are often called names when they try to do things their way. [I’m not as familiar with these names.]
But the real issue is whether everyone has the right to make these decisions regarding their own lives.
Arm The Homeless
Here is my pop-psychology take: After Breitbart throws a rod, the ‘activists’ within the RW felt uneasy that there was a hole blown in the fabric of their world-view. He is a God that bleeds.
When Rush was backed into a corner after hours and hours of the MSM shining light on his words, the RW had a knee-jerk reaction to rally-round their boy-king for fear that they might lose even more rhetorical ammo.
I have noticed the more militant tone since Breitbart’s passing. I really believe that if they can’t shift this narrative this week that they are going to end up with a ni*clang* from one of the less hinged mouth-breathers, and a not so insignificant ‘rally-round-that-loser’ reaction from the peanut-gallery.
Needless to say, it’s a good time to be a popcorn farmer
JGabriel
chopper:
There are lots of things you can call MoDo — shallow, with regressive gender politics, for instance — but “moron” isn’t really one of then.
.
cermet
@chopper: Not sure what world you live in but in the real world, we don’t worry about fake slippery slope arguments about critical health care issues relating to grave risk’s to the lives of woman. Last time I checked, sex was a critical health related care issue that should 100% be considered and just that issue alone is critical to the health of countless woman. Maybe your point would be better about the wasted money on viagra since it has zero heath specific uses. Oh, sorry, only woman’s health issues that have sex involved are in dangerous waters and we need to be ‘careful’ about our arguments. Yeah, right.
lamh35
So how much of my tax dollars is going towards Viagra? Isn’t the almost sole purpose of ED drugs to be able to have sex…yeah mainly for pleasure? Especially since nowadays you don’t need to have sex to have children. So V’gra apart of this conversation about having to pay for men to be able to have a lot of sex
cermet
Moderation?
Linda Featheringill
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/keep-united-states-out-war-iran-we-need-investment-home-not-another-dumb-war-abroad/CMj5YWcm
While you’re on whitehouse dot gov to petition against Rush, take a look at the please-don’t-go-to-war-with-Iran petition.
JPL
Tomorrow Rush will apologize and say why are we talking about sex when unemployment is so high. He’ll then go on his commun.ist, fasc.ist, marx.ist rant declaring that the President not only wants your guns but wants to stifle free speech.
RedKitten
@JGabriel: THAT’S what I would like to see. It alarms the hell out of me that Faux News and Rush Limbaugh are spoon-fed ’round the clock to the troops. Some of these individuals will eventually become political advisers, or Secretaries of Defense, and then what?
Arm The Homeless
@cermet: I concede the intent of your point, but to be fair, there is at least one off-label use for ‘little blue pill’–and the orange one too–with regards to a certain type of hypertension. FYI
EDIT: @JPL: DING! DING! I have absorbed enough of that idiots BS living in the South, this will be the M.O. and the tune will go on without skipping a beat. He knows he lost some face, but he can’t looked cowed. It’s all PR and damage control this week.
kerFuFFler
Rush’s apology sure was lame. It reminds me of a time when one of my son’s classmates tried to exclude him from a game at recess on the grounds that my son was Jewish. The child was instructed to write a note of apology to my son, and boy were we surprised that it read, “Dear Matthew, I’m sorry I called you a Jew.”
Chris
@lonesomerobot:
Oh, the teabaggers stopped him. Dude. He totally WOULD have, but the teabaggers stood up and made him afraid. Yeah.
BO_Bill
Perhaps people should just buy condoms, thereby keeping the government out of women’s uteruses.
jayackroyd
Zunguzungu has an interesting comment wrt:
http://bit.ly/wRd3Ek
Zifnab25
@JPL:
But none of that involves sex, so the cable news harpies aren’t going to give a shit. Rush doesn’t gently guide the debate, he goes off like a bag full of TNT and leaves the Party leadership to clean up his mess. He’ll run off into a week-long self-pity parade, and fade into the background until a new hot button comes along and he blows up again. Only the people who actually listen to Rush are going to follow what he says next, unless CNN/MSNBC/FOX give it a full day of coverage.
JPL
@BO_Bill: Perhaps the government should just cut it off when certain males reach puberty.
BO_Bill
Yours does not represent the civilized discourse that mistermix is trying to impose upon our collective JPL.
Villago Delenda Est
@Arm The Homeless:
It’s going to come to this, before November.
They’re going to use that word and specifically aim it at the President, the First Lady, or the girls.
It’s coming to that. They are unhinged, they are desperate, and they are drowning.
forked tongue
@BO_Bill: Perhaps the government should just stay the hell out of women’s uteruses, thereby keeping the government out of women’s uteruses.
And now it’s the pie filter for you, Nardwipe.
scav
BoB, Its contributions never enhance the rational component of any conversation, civilized or not, that he wanders through like a disconnected bad small.
Villago Delenda Est
The sooner BO_B goes the way of Breitbart, the better.
BO_Bill
As a big fan of women’s uteruses, I fully support keeping the government out of women’s uteruses, as the last thing I want to think about when I am enjoying women’s uteruses, is Barack Obama. However, there are some potential health benefits, to those men who society might define as having ‘premature tendencies’.
In the past, these challenged men could think about old females defecating, as a means to prolong the sexual experience for them and their special someone. Now, with government-sponsored uteruses, they can simply think of Michelle Obama eating French fries.
This is truly progress with regards to the overall health of American society. And it is all about health.
Arm The Homeless
OT, but funny: Could our own special little troll be two-timing on us? It would be irresponsible not to speculate
Warning: Den of rabid, racist fucks
cermet
@BO_Bill: Last I checked, it wasn’t the Gov but thug politician’s and the boy raping or full time protectors of the rapist called catholic bishops that demanded control of woman’s uteruses. Try reading instead of writing posts like that steaming pile of lie’s – then add your thoughts.
mistermix
@BO_Bill: Enjoying a woman’s *uterus* Bill? Clearly, any discussion of sex with a woman is a completely theoretical exercise for you.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jayackroyd:
I especially liked this quote:
Though I will say, until last month, why would Obama have needed to mention women’s reproductive health in the state of the union? All he did was end the need for a copay; the Republicans and religious leaders used that as an opportunity to once again attack general health coverage.
I think, once again, when your enemies are injuring themselves, you stay out of their way. Otherwise, that was a great article.
Anya
@jayackroyd:
Are you fucking kidding me! By any chance was Zunguzungu hiding in a cave the past few months? Didn’t this whole “debate” start because of a hearing designed to undermine President Barack Obama’s decision to guarantee women’s free access to contraception health care regardless of their workplace.
Is Zunguzungu aware that the Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to cover contraceptives, which the Obama administration ruled that religious institutions are not exempt?
Also, this is what the President said about women’s access to health care:
forked tongue
@mistermix: Did he say he was “enjoying a woman’s uterus”? I know his ilk like to say anything they think will piss liberals off, but self-identifying as a cannibal? If this is the next step for wingnuts, I’m all for it!
Svensker
@Arm The Homeless:
Oy.
I don’t even want to know how you found that.
Betty Cracker
@Anya: Thank you. I thought that was an extraordinarily dumb argument too.
Arm The Homeless
@Svensker: The Breitbart continuum leads one to a lot of unsavory places.
Persia
@Arm The Homeless: My dad has pulmonary hypertension, the one non-sexual reason for (the blue pill that just landed me in moderation). Getting his prescription refilled is an exercise in embarrassment for him because the disorder is so rare and little-known. I’d guess far, far more women use birth control pills for non-birth control uses than people use the blue pill for anything but erections.
Mnemosyne
@Anya:
This is where ODS leads people, “Oh, sure, she was testifying in front of Congress because the Obama administration made new rules that require all health plans to cover contraception for free as preventative care, but what has Obama done to make contraception more accessible?”
GregB
Limbaugh has never apologized as far as I can recall.
He showed weakness and the rubes were running behind him ready to go off the cliff and he stepped aside and let them plunge off when he groveled with his half assed apology.
He’ll be off the radio in less than a year.
Jennifer
Agree that we shouldn’t cede ground by buying into the “birth control has other uses too” frame.
What we should be doing is pointing out, at every turn, that since WE pay for our health coverage, then our employers, Rush Limbaugh, Catholic bishops, etc. should have NO FUCKING SAY in whether or not it covers contraception. Insurance coverage is a part of what people get paid by their employers (sometimes; there are employers who offer group plans and don’t pick up any of the tab). However much the employer is paying in for that insurance, it’s the employee’s money. Your employer doesn’t get to dictate how you spend your money on anything ELSE, why should health coverage be different, particularly when they are going to FORCE you to pay for something that doesn’t really meet your needs? They aren’t allowed to dictate the kind of car you can buy, the food you can buy, the home you can buy…this is no different.
Some kind of a slogan might be helpful, such as “In America, you have the freedom to pay for the health coverage your employer thinks you should have, whether it’s what you need or not.”
They want to make this all about “infringement of rights?” Fine, let’s talk about the real rights that are being infringed – OUR rights to not have to spend our money that we’ve earned on something that doesn’t work for us.
I’d like to see some ads targeted at married couples too – letting them know that Republicans, who screech about “freedom” and “government interferene” think that they should be in charge, so they can control citizens’ sex lives and family size. Another good place for a slogan, something like “Republicans like to talk about smaller and less intrusive government, but their idea of “smaller and less intrusive” is a government in which they decide how many children you should have. Under Republican leadership, you have the freedom of celibacy or more children than you want or can afford.”
It just maddens me that every fucking time they go off the rails, everyone chases the shiny object instead of just saying, “they’re lying again, here’s the facts, and now they need to sit down and shut the fuck up.”
El Cid
@Jennifer: I think there’s a part of the argument when it’s pointed out their ignoring of the non-sexual medical uses of ‘the pill’ for women that indicates how an obsession with moralizing on sexuality has become demonstrably fanatical. It’s a measure of unhingedness that draws the attention of people who ordinarily might not pay much attention to or come to much of a judgment about routine right wing venomous anti-woman moralizing — a ‘you people really have gone nuts’ level.
merrinc
@JGabriel:
Maureen Dowd may not be a moron but she certainly isn’t as clever as SHE thinks she is. She’s as much a drag on public discourse as the wingnuts. I have fantasies of her and Ann Coulter being locked up in the same padded room – forever.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Southern Beale:
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that libruls are tech nuts and maybe some use Carbonite while wingers can barely figure out how to plug their computers into a wall socket. I’m glad that El Lardo is losing advertisers. I hope he keeps it up and loses all of them.
That would put him solidly on winger welfare.
Damn, the right is just falling apart before our very eyes. What a horrifically beautiful nightmare to behold.
Persia
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Yeah, the problem is that the general discourse has moved so far right in terms of women’s autonomy that people on the right chose to interpret the President’s act as a radical act.
DanielX
Maureen Dowd’s column title:
Have You No Shame, Rush?
No.
This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
Shalimar
@Frank: In theory, Mormons are only supposed to baptize those who didn’t have a chance to consider becoming Mormons during their lives. Obviously, that isn’t the way it works in practice most of the time.
kerFuFFler
I sure hope Fluke hits Rush with a defamation suit. Come to think of it shouldn’t it be a class action suit since he just called most women sluts?
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
lets not fuck the football here.
birth control is health care.
g
Fluke’s testimony, as John pointed out, was all about the use of the pill for ovarian cysts. It didn’t matter, she was still called a slut,
It must also be pointed out that her testimony wasn’t about her own use, other than in the most broad and general terms. It was about other women. Even so, that didn’t stop them from calling her, personally, a slut.
It shows you what these people are like.
lamh35
Thank you David Axelrod for finally putting this out there!
Obama aide: Limbaugh made ‘sort of quasi-apology’
mistermix
@jayackroyd: That post is a great illustration of how someone can grasp the subtleties of an ideological point and completely misunderstand the subtleties of politics. Calling Fluke was a deft political act – he was able to show (not tell) that Limbaugh was a bully by consoling the bully’s target without getting in a pissing match with a skunk like Rush.
g
@BO_Bill: False equivalency.
You don’t know how oral contraception works, do you?
Frank
@Shalimar:
Yes, I am aware of that. I just don’t understand why they don’t respect the choice made by non-Mormon before they died.
How would the Mormon leaders feel if other religions started to baptize dead Mormons to other religions?
bemused
Rightwingers not understanding how the birth control pill works is the best argument that comprehensive sex education should be required in every junior and senior high school.
WereBear (itouch)
@kerFuFFler:
Sign me up! Seriously. We have a theoretical 65% of the female population who would sign up too.
Limbaugh has given us plenty of evidence.
Jay in Oregon
@Southern Beale:
I know Quicken Loans does as well. I’ve also heard Hartmann and others do ads for gold traders.
They probably just do block media buys (“Get me $300,000 worth of ads on talk radio stations in these markets”). It probably gets even more confusing when you have liberal and wingnut talk shows on the same stations.
kc
I need to find out what Carbonite makes, so I can buy some …
lol
@mistermix:
A white guy progressive blogger with a grasp of policy but not grasp of politics? No wai!
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Its not just conservative men that don’t pay attention when women are speaking.
mapaghimagsik
Carbonite is a good product (offsite backup for your computer, so if your hard drive dies, your critical files are backed up ) and they have good technical support. I would bet that talk radio is a relatively cheap advertising expenditure, but you have to go for the guys that have lots of listeners.
I was worried, to be honest. I like Carbonite as a product and didn’t get the chance to jump in and say “I love you guys, but really? You’re paying to be tied to this crap?” I’m really glad I didn’t have to, but will congratulate them just the same.
I like Marcott’s writing and take no prisoners attitude regarding women, women’s health, and women’s sexuality. It might not always be good politics, but I’m sick to death of delicate centrists stupidly ratfucking us to the dark ages.
Karen
1. Because I had a blood clot that gave me DVT eleven years ago, I can’t take birth control (hormones) for it but yes, I can tell you from personal experience that it’s used for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS. And it’s not an off label reason. The reason why it’s used is not to get rid of the cysts directly but to stop the cause: overproduction of testosterone. Symptoms also include overproduction of facial hair and male pattern baldness and obesity. The cysts can be small or they can be so big and painful that they need to be drained. And they grow back. One thing they have you do when you’re diagnosed is to give you insulin regulating drugs as well because it’s been found that metabolic syndrome and even diabetes can cause PCOS. Sorry for the medical lesson but I thought that if people are talking about PCOS, at least they should know what it is.
2. As for the theory that by including that PCOS reason for contraception, that only feeds into the female sexuality should be shameful idea, I don’t agree there.
By including a medical reason for why it’s used, Fluke was able to show how unreasonable the right wing is being. And by President Obama calling her, it suddenly shows the non insane Americans that it’s not just about shaming female sexuality. The right wing and Rushbo are shaming WOMEN themselves. It’s gone past sexuality. They want women to be ashamed to be women!
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I hope this pains Limbaugh, truly, I do. I hope it causes him to get cranky and irritable so that he has a shitty day. I hope he gets dirty looks even from the women who work with him on a daily basis. I hope it causes him to worry that he might actually lose a dollar or a million from his huge stash (because enough is never enough for people like him). I hope it hurts, stings, and pisses him off. F.U. Limbaugh….
ericblair
@Frank:
Of course they’d feel that it would be blasphemous and a sin against the dead. But, don’t you see, the Mormons are Right and the other religions are Wrong, so it’s OK for the Mormons to do it. QED. The problem with these fairness arguments is that the believer in question doesn’t believe that fairness between religions should exist, because for the most part they’re pretty convinced they’re following the real path and everyone else isn’t.
This all depends on who the target of the argument is, doesn’t it? Are you trying to peel off the vacillating conservative women, who have issues with sex but know very well the GOP has gone barking mad about this? Or are you trying to validate the views of Dem women who do believe that people’s sexual activity is no goddamn business of the government at all? I’m firmly in the latter camp, but we need to peel off the waverers right now. As long as we’re not dumping on people who are (gasp) sexually active, it’s not a terrible thing to focus on another framing of the issue.
Funny how all that talk about “not having government bureaucrats between a person and their doctor” goes out the window as soon as sex is involved.
Maude
Rush doesn’t belong on the public airwaves.
Joey Maloney
@Villago Delenda Est:
I just hope they can restrain themselves. Until, say, towards the end of the third week in October.
chopper
@cermet:
I think you missed my point entirely.
chopper
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
exactly. trying to make the argument about the off-label uses that might go over better with some crowd is missing the point. every use of the pill is for a legitimate medical reason.
aimai
@ericblair:
It goes out the window when women are involved. Not male sexual activity unless its homosexual activity. This has always been the case. The puritans monitored male and female sexuality in order to prevent both sex outside of marriage and the birth of bastard children. Subsequent to that period unlawful female sexual activity (activity outside of marriage) was monitored and controlled in order to protect legitimacy (men’s rights to own their own progeny) and to prevent the rise of an unawanted illegitimate population.
Even where the government isn’t–the government has always been. The very assertion that there could be no “rape within marriage” is a form of government control over female sexuality since the government was refusing to submit male marital privilige to outside law and control.
Not to get all technical here but the patriarchal household economy with one head (male) existed within a nexus of rights held by men in general over both unmarried women and married women. Where the government refuses to step in there’s the same power vacuum that you see in failed states with the rise of the Mafia. The power of the head of household is unchecked.
Birth control that women can access without getting permission from their husbands, fathers, lovers, is a huge deal in breaking the control of men over women. In this case, really for almost the first time historically, the government is on the side of women. Sociologically speaking this is like the brief period of reconstruction when the US government stopped enforcing slavery and started enforcing equality.
aimai
wrb
I have trouble believing that if his listenership doesn’t decline, that his ad rates will, which is what will matter.
Read the comments of his fans- they are loving this. Casual listeners are probably not missing a broadcast due to the excitement.
The advertisers will return as soon as the outrage turns elsewhere.
wrb
@Arm The Homeless:
The N word is really worse that the likes of “Moochelle” and “prostitute”?
I guess it is for some, I just never understood its specialness.
Arm The Homeless
@wrb: It’s a bright line that culture and media can point to as incapable of being given the benefit of the doubt. Trying to argue ‘intent’ allows them to easily sidetrack the narrative.
Mark K
SIGN THE PETITION!!!
Dammit, liberals are so fucking lazy. Just went and signed it and only 700 so far. Come on man! How tough is following a link? Geez!
whitehouse.gov
Billy Beane
mistermix sounds like a 10yo trying to give their parents marital advice. You are just embarrassing yourself mm.
Chris Grrr™
@Karen: Thanks. I’m glad for the “lesson”, and for this thread. More ammo…
jefft452
“Every time you say this, a right winger wanting to imply that women who have sex for pleasure are sluts gets his wings. This statement and all variations on it feeds into the right wing claim that a) contraception is not health care and b) that women who have sex for pleasure are so indefensible that you have to lean on off-label uses for a contraceptive drug to justify its existence”
Normally I would agree with Marcotte, but I think there has been a shift in public opinion so this dosent work that way anymore
I compare this debate to public opinion in the north prior to the civil war
Most people were not diehard abolitionists, and John Brown was a dirty hippie at best and a terrorist at worst, … but bleeding Kansas got blamed on the south, not “on both sides”
The people in Kansas just wanted statehood, we could have just given it to them, but no, we had to have a long drawn out debate leading to yet another “compromise” with a rube-goldberg plebiscite conducted during a terror campaign and bloody reprisals … all because the south just couldn’t allow us to do anything unless the pro-slavery cause was our first priority
Non contraception uses of the pills work the same way, even people who don’t care about slut shaming start to get pissed when the wingers are willing to let others suffer from ovarian cysts just to advance the cause of slut shaming
David Koch
@Mark K: This.
Stranger Reader
I agree with Marcotte. The rhetorical framing that many are choosing here concedes to the slut-shamers; it’s losing the war to win the battle. And women using birth control as birth control vastly outnumber those using it for other medical conditions, so better messaging could make this an even more personal issue for a lot more women. Who cares whether Rush is mischaracterizing Fluke’s testimony? The way he has chosen to misrepresent it is actually more broadly offensive and therefore presents an even greater political opportunity.
asiangrrlMN
@Stranger Reader: I agree, too. I think it should be pointed out that Limbaugh lied about Fluke’s testimony, but it also needs to be said that if she were talking about herself and contraception affordability, Limbaugh still would have been wrong. A healthy sexuality is part of overall health and should be covered under healthcare, full stop. It’s frustrating that the issue of a woman’s sexuality is so toxic that any ‘admission’ a woman is having non-marital sex and enjoying herself thoroughly is a liability for our side.
Lex
Regarding Carbonite: If it’s still up, read the original statement from the CEO, which was all “well, talk radio in general is contentious” and “you know, conservatives dislike NPR, too,” and “Maybe Rush and I should sit down and talk this out.”
I’d like to think that the reason he mentioned his two daughters in the second, more forceful statement that everyone is so happy with is that his daughters read the first one and junkpunched him.