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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: Nice — Sandra Fluke Is Still Punishing Rush Limbaugh

Open Thread: Nice — Sandra Fluke Is Still Punishing Rush Limbaugh

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Per Politico:

…[T]here are signs that all is not well in the Limbaugh radio empire. Because even as his influence is sky high and his dominance at the top of talk radio remains unchallenged, as a business proposition, Limbaugh’s show is on shaky ground. In recent years, Limbaugh has been dropped by several of his long-time affiliates, including some very powerful ones: He’s gone from WABC in New York, WRKO in Boston and KFI in Los Angeles, for example, and has in many cases been moved onto smaller stations with much weaker signals that cover smaller areas.

Why? Because four years after Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” on air, spurring a major boycott movement, reams of advertisers still won’t touch him. He suffers from what talk radio consultant Holland Cooke calls a “scarlet letter among national brand advertisers.” And for someone who has said that “confiscatory ad rates” are a key pillar of his business, that spells trouble. (Limbaugh ignored multiple interview requests.)

Limbaugh’s extremely lucrative eight-year contract—estimated to be worth roughly $38 million a year—is up this summer. What will happen to “America’s Anchorman,” as Limbaugh quasi-ironically refers to himself, once the contract is up, is anybody’s guess. Because as he is learning, political power does not necessarily a stellar business make…

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  3. 3.

    Eric U.

    I never understood why anyone would advertise on his show anyway. My daughter likes to watch Fox news. I’m a little distressed by who advertises on there. They have fairly regular outrageous statements, it’s like companies sponsoring the republican party

    @srv: did Judith Miller say she was fucking right again? If only we could get Bill Kristol to say Trump was bound to beat Hillary, we would be set, the trifecta of wrongness. Of course, Rience is being paid to be wrong, whereas the other two are nominally being paid to be right

  4. 4.

    Emma

    @srv: And we’re supposed to get crazy over anything Obvious Anagram (thanks, Mr. Pierce) says? Really?

    And in re: Limbaugh: May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind illegitimate children chase him so far over the hills of Damnation that the Lord himself can’t find him even with a radio telescope.

  5. 5.

    germy

    He spent decades talking shit about minorities. No repercussions. But as soon as he attacked a young white woman it was all over for him.

    EDIT:
    Wait, I spoke too soon. Didn’t he lose a sportscasting gig after making racist comments about black sportsball players?

  6. 6.

    gf120581

    @srv: This when his party’s nominee is Trump. Project much, Reince?

    Oh and go harass some goats, troll.

  8. 8.

    Eric U.

    @germy: yes, ESPN fired him for saying racist crap about Donovan McNabb. He only has done this well because his audience are idiots. Who doesn’t know that saying racist crap in sportscasting is simply not done? Who thinks that racist crap would be interesting to a general audience? One reason I watch as much sports as I do is because politics and racist crap is not part of the sports media product. At least for the most part.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy:

    Yep. He lost a “Monday Night Football” gig because he said racist shit about Donovan McNabb on the air. I’m not even a sportsball fan and I heard about it.

  11. 11.

    Miss Bianca

    @srv: Yeah, I’m shaking in my go-go boots. Because, you know, JUDY MILLER and REINCE PRIEBUS, not at ALL two of the hackiest hacks in America!

    Seriously, man, you’ve GOT to do better than this. Unless you really are just doing this to make us laugh. In which case, good job!

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    @Eric U.:

    I never understood why anyone would advertise on his show anyway.

    Because he has a large, gullible audience. If they’re willing to buy the crap Rush is saying without a question, they’ll probably buy what his advertisers are selling, too.

  15. 15.

    germy

    @Eric U.:

    ESPN fired him for saying racist crap about Donovan McNabb.

    Why were they surprised? Didn’t they know what they were getting when they hired him?

    It’s like hiring a honey badger to babysit an infant. But then smearing molasses all over the infant before you leave the house and saying “There’s a list of emergency numbers on the fridge. We’ll be back after the movie.”

    What did they expect?

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    LOL

    Romney: I speak out against Trump to sleep at night
    5/27/16 11:34 AM EDT

    For Mitt Romney, the decision to take on Donald Trump was a matter of personal integrity, the former Republican nominee suggested in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday.

    “I know that some people are offended that someone who lost and is the former nominee continues to speak, but that’s how I can sleep at night,” Romney said. “And there are some people, though it’s a small number, who still value my opinion.”

    Recalling a conversation with his son Josh, the former Massachusetts governor said he was asked, “When the grandkids ask ‘What did you do to stop Donald Trump?’ what are you going to say?’” The Boston Globe reported the same account in March.

  19. 19.

    Gravenstone

    @Eric U.: I like to describe Limbaugh as someone who has failed at literally everything he’s ever tried (the football gig was basically his dream job, and he pooched it because he’s a racist shitbag), with the notable exception of running his fat mouth. Sadly, in the US of A, being able to run one’s mouth and tell the rubes what they want to hear, reinforcing their hate and prejudices can be quite rewarding. But even that golden run can come to its end, as Rushbo is now learning. Soon he’ll be all alone with only his prodigious sense of self loathing to keep him company. Couldn’t happen to a nicer asshole.

  20. 20.

    germy

    @Roger Moore:

    Because he has a large, gullible audience. If they’re willing to buy the crap Rush is saying without a question, they’ll probably buy what his advertisers are selling, too.

    “We have this worthless product and we desperately need the Stupid, Believe Any Shit market to unload it on. But where to find such consumers?”

  26. 26.

    cokane

    Hate to say it, but there really isn’t much beef in that story. It’s almost entirely speculation. Limbaugh seems likely to continue broadcasting to millions until he dies or retires.

  27. 27.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    What will happen to “America’s Anchorman,” as Limbaugh quasi-ironically refers to himself, once the contract is up, is anybody’s guess.

    Actually, it’s not. He’s fucking done. Alex Jones pulls more listeners and has far better station coverage than Limpballs, and the contract hasn’t even run out yet. Is he going away? No. Is he being relegated to the backwater stations? Yep.

    Who’s the replacement? Obviously Insanity Hannity.

    Didn’t he lose a sportscasting gig after making racist comments about black sportsball players?

    @germy: His life’s dream gig. Seriously. And it didn’t last two weeks, he had to go educate us about the Negro. No one clued him in that sports reporting actually still has standards and requires fact-based reporting. He never would have made it, but he took himself out much sooner than his lack of talent eventually would have.

  29. 29.

    Eric U.

    @Mnemosyne: Sometimes I feel like I have a Forest Gump-like curse of being there when bad TV history is being made. I was watching live when the NFL official said that black people didn’t make good quarterbacks because of racist stereotypes. There have been a couple of other instances where someone in sports said something racist that I saw live. And when I saw Limbaugh say his racist crap, which he obviously wrote beforehand, I was mostly shocked that he didn’t know what had happened to those other people.

    @Gravenstone: one thing about Limbaugh that has always driven me crazy is that he has so much dead air on his show. I just can’t stand to listen to dead air, drives me nuts. I blame it on the drug addiction and related hearing loss. I had forgotten about the drugs, I wonder if he really becomes known as a failure if he will not just let himself go on that front

  30. 30.

    germy

    @Gravenstone: Remember the day he filled in for Pat Sajak on his short-lived show and got hooted off the stage by the audience. He never appeared in front of an audience again, unless it was a sympathetic crowd of screened true-believers. You never see him debate. You never see him anywhere unless it’s severely controlled.

    He boasts his radio show screener is the hardest-working guy. He seems proud that he can’t face the public.

  31. 31.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    He’s probably livid that someone like Donald Trump is firing up the Republican base in a way that he was utterly incapable of.

    (Should Trump win, he just might be even more pissed).

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    @Eric U.:

    I never watch football, and yet somehow I managed to see Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction live because my father-in-law was in town and we were watching the game with him.

  33. 33.

    germy

    @Eric U.:

    Sometimes I feel like I have a Forest Gump-like curse of being there when bad TV history is being made.

    I was watching when Stanley Siegel had an obviously stoned Truman Capote on his morning show. Capote could barely speak and he was dripping with venom against old jet-setter friends who’d forsaken him. His voice was slurred and he couldn’t keep his eyes open. I don’t think a clip exists anywhere, but it was like watching a slow-motion traffic accident.

  35. 35.

    redshirt

    @Eric U.: I watched the ESPN Limbaugh McNabb bit live. I knew what was going to happen the minute I saw it – you can’t bring racist shit to sportscasting. Politics? Sure. But not sports.

    Another reason why sports is better then politics.

  36. 36.

    ? Martin

    @Eric U.:

    He only has done this well because his audience are idiots.

    No, it’s because he has no boss to fire him. He owns his radio empire and the only thing that matters is that the ads keep flowing in to keep him on the air. That’s why the boycott matters – it’s the only accountability there is.

  37. 37.

    Soylent Green

    Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus said on Friday that he believes the Democratic Party’s likely nomination of Hillary Clinton is one of the biggest blunders in the recent history of the party.

    If this doesn’t prove how afraid they are that Hillz will beat the crap out of Trump, then nothing does.

  40. 40.

    MazeDancer

    There is an interview in the Atlantic of a 22-year-old Trump supporter by young Conor Friedersdorf that is getting a lot of attention on Twitter.

    It is a disturbing piece. The Trump supporter lives in San Fran area. He has a good job and a fiance who is Asian. He is a conservative. And is supporting Trump to end “PC Culture”.

    He wants to be able to be a rage spewing asshole and have people react positively. Not the situation he has now where he can’t express his true feelings because then people will call him a Nazi.

    He thinks President Trump setting an example spouting racism and hatred will let him do this. And if Trump is not elected, PC Culture reigns forever.

    Make Hate Great Again – Trump 2026

  43. 43.

    Mike in NC

    @rikyrah: Mitt in all likelihood will have a sudden change of heart and jump on the Drumpf bandwagon before the convention. He’s too much of a publicity hound to not attend.

  45. 45.

    Punchy

    I’m no math major, but isn’t $38 mill a year for 8 years make it a NINE figure contract?

    So why are people gloating that “he’s finished”? He’s got damn near a half-bill to rent rentboys and buy enough oxy to feed a frat house. I’d love to be that “finished”.

    ETA: to clarify, I wouldn’t want the money for those things, but some decent strippers and quality weed would be nice.

  46. 46.

    debbie

    Don’t forget Reince Preibus was the man who said the GOP 17-candidate roster represented (in his words) “an embarrassment of riches.”

  47. 47.

    Ella in New Mexico

    [T]here are signs that all is not well in the Limbaugh radio empire.

    Yeah, well, given he has probably made multi-millions of his show and it’s merchandizing towards it’s mindless Ditto heads, I’m not too worried about his fucking “empire”. He won’t suffer, ever, not one day if he goes off the air tomorrow.

    And meanwhile, there’s all the little baby Limbaughs he’s spawned that are doing just nicely, thank you, like Hannity and Ingrahm and Savage and Levin and Hewitt and all the others who also are making beucoup bucks on hate, spewed across publicly owned radio frequencies. Even if he does lose his contract, he’ll find his way to XM/SIRIUS or some other internet-based broadcasts. I mean, ALEX JONES, people.

    High on the list of the “Top 10 Instant Changes” we do in this country after regaining both houses of Congress and the Presidency is restoring the God-damn Fairness Doctrine.

  49. 49.

    geg6

    @srv:

    Seriously?? The Obvious Anagram and Judith Fucking Miller? We’re supposed to quake in our boots over them?

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

  50. 50.

    joel hanes

    @Emma:

    Obvious Anagram

    With all due respect to Pierce, the senior epithet is “obvious OCR error”. I think it may have come from Doghouse Riley, peace be upon him.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @MazeDancer:

    There is an interview in the Atlantic of a 22-year-old Trump supporter by young Conor Friedersdorf that is getting a lot of attention on Twitter.

    If that sentence doesn’t capture everything that’s wrong with our politics, I don’t know what can.

  55. 55.

    Svensker

    @redshirt:

    Limbaugh is a huge football fan. He tried to buy a piece of the then St. Louis Rams but was denied because of his background. Losing the ESPN gig must have hurt him bad.

    As I recall, the black players said they would not play on his team. Karma, suckah.

    @major major major major Woop!

  57. 57.

    MattF

    I think part of the problem is that Limbaugh’s original fans have died off or gone gaga– the man’s been around for quite a while. Once upon a time, his schtick was new and different, now it’s old.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m glad his business model is tanking, but I’d consider it justice if he were huddled under an overpass getting waffle marks on his ass from a milk crate instead of lolling about tended by servants in a beachfront mansion. Oh well, we’ve got to find our schadenfreude where we can, I suppose.

  59. 59.

    Gravenstone

    O/T: Just because I find this somewhat delightful. The Cubs’ back up catcher is David Ross. He is retiring at the end of this season and has 501 career hits. Today, hit number 501 was also career homerun number 100. I just love that 20% of his hits have been homers.

  60. 60.

    Major Major Major Major

    @MazeDancer: My favorite part is when he apparently summarizes himself with

    I recently became engaged to my Asian fiancée who is making roughly 3 times what I make, and I am completely supportive of her and proud she is doing so well

    Who the fuck asked about the race of his wife? Is this supposed to be an accomplishment because she’s Asian?

  62. 62.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @MazeDancer:

    He wants to be able to be a rage spewing asshole and have people react positively

    That basically sums up almost every single Trump supporter I personally know. Really. They’re all victims, and angry and think they’re the only ones in the world who’ve ever had to give anything up in order to live in a free society.

  66. 66.

    ? Martin

    @MazeDancer:

    He wants to be able to be a rage spewing asshole and have people react positively. Not the situation he has now where he can’t express his true feelings because then people will call him a Nazi.

    I think that’s overstating it, but not by much. Mostly he sounds like a scared little glibertarian who is unable to express his fears because his fears are pretty much all racial, etc. But to his defense, that he’s in San Francisco is important. SF is often its own worst enemy on issues like this because there is often so little forgiveness for people making mistakes. I’m of the ‘everyone is a little bit racists’ view, and so I think it’s important to forgive people their wording and I think it’s also important to allow people to express their fears. A solid strategy for getting people pissed off at you is to deny their emotions – tell them to not be upset, etc. They’re upset, or they’re afraid, and the reasons for that are often out of their control (or seem to be). You have to let people express that or else they can’t ever work on it, and SF as a broad activist community is surprisingly unforgiving of that sort of thing.

    Unfortunately his remedy would be to exactly backfire. President Trump might open things up in Alabama, but it sure as shit won’t in SF – just the opposite. Let’s chalk that up to the experience of a 22 year old with a girlfriend that makes $150K – not exactly a mainstream viewpoint.

  67. 67.

    SenyorDave

    @Major Major Major Major: Who the fuck asked about the race of his wife? Is this supposed to be an accomplishment because she’s Asian?

    It’s just another thing on his checklist. If I could say one thing to his Asian fiancé, I’d tell her it’s not late, run for the hills!

  68. 68.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Gravenstone: I think it’s both. I live in SF. A white (libertarian, because of course) 22-year-old dude does consider an Asian Tiger Wife(tm) a status symbol.

    This is my second-favorite part:

    This is a war over how dialogue in America will be shaped.

    Yes, the biggest issue facing America today is how we talk to white people. I know that’s not a particularly productive thing to say myself but come on.

  71. 71.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I still hear Rush on the radio in a few factories and small shops that I visit. The grimier they are, the more likely that the standard Classic Rock is replaced by the angry old white man.
    And typically it’s young white guys listening, which is depressing.

  75. 75.

    singfoom

    @Major Major Major Major: Congratulations on the job. Hope it goes well.

    Also too, BiP thinks you’re evil and ignorant and don’t care about people regardless of your job. You’re only good and clued in if you believe his craziness.

  76. 76.

    Mike J

    @? Martin:

    He owns his radio empire and the only thing that matters is that the ads keep flowing in to keep him on the air. That’s why the boycott matters – it’s the only accountability there is.

    He owns the show but not the stations that carry it. There’s more to the boycott than people know.

    Most radio ads (TV too, for that matter) are bought Run of Day. That means the traffic department schedules them where ever there is a free spot. Buy a hundred ads for the week and sure, some of them are going to wind up in the 3AM hour, but some of them are going to land in morning drive. You get a cheap price because you don’t control the time, and the good spots tend to balance out the bad.

    Radio stations love it because they can put ads in dayparts that don’t sell well on their own. They can also show potential advertisers a rock bottom rate to bring in business.

    At stations that carry Limbaugh, many advertisers who buy rod spots have been telling traffic, “no Limbaugh.” It’s one more headache to deal with when you have 3500 minutes of stop sets to schedule for the week, and a show that used to draw premium rates is being actively avoided. Even worse, what happens if avoiding Limbaugh makes the advertiser reconsider all controversial programming? That’s most of the day at a talk radio station. Why would you want to carry a show that you can’t sell and potentially drives advertisers away from shows they were happy to buy before?

  77. 77.

    Elizabelle

    OMG. My Barcelona apartment is in Poble Sec. I am hearing Coldplay play live, very close, maybe a few blocks from my apartment. They’re in town, and they sound great.

    Unbelievable. (Although Trump has ruined that word.)

    They just played “Clocks.” I thought, no way is that a cover band.

  80. 80.

    RSR

    >>his influence is sky high

    Really? I haven’t heard anyone mention him – love or hate – in months. Many months.

    Until this season, my hometown baseball team used to have an AM station as their flagship (an old clear channel – the broadcast phenomenon, not the company) and an FM simulcast. The lead in bumpers returning to an inning were often promos for Limbaugh for the AM station. This season, the club went FM only for radio broadcast.

  82. 82.

    WarMunchkin

    “Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher. LIkewise the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case women’s health issues,” Trump said in a released statement. “Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders–and it would be an easy pay day–I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.”

    I am crying with laughter right now.

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    @WarMunchkin:

    I thought you were kidding. Holy shit.

    Maybe if someone went to Trump and offered him the job as Juvenile Asshole-in-Chief, he’d accept. He’s certainly the best-qualified candidate for the position.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: You just gots to tell us when you get here. It will happen.

    Covering David Bowie’s Heroes now.

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @redshirt:

    you can’t bring racist shit to sportscasting. Politics? Sure. But not sports.

    You can bring racist shit to sports, but it has to be more subtle than that. For example, compare what adjectives are used to describe players. There are some (mostly positive) words that are almost exclusively used for white players and some (mostly negative) ones reserved for black players. A white player who’s angry all the time and has trouble getting along with teammates is intense; a black player with the same characteristics is moody.

    The biggest advantage that sports has is that people are ultimately forced to pay attention to evidence. There’s a scoreboard that tells you who won and who lost, and endless stats that tell you how it happened. I guess you could say that politics has the equivalent of a scoreboard, but it’s obviously possible to do well in elections while being completely disconnected from the process of governing. Not so much in sports.

  102. 102.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Who the fuck asked about the race of his wife? Is this supposed to be an accomplishment because she’s Asian?

    It’s to prove that he can’t possibly be racist. Pointing out that she makes more money than him proves he isn’t sexist. That’s how they think.

  104. 104.

    Mnemosyne

    @Punchy:

    FWIW, Limbaugh strikes me as being one of those guys who craves respect and fame, not money. Living like a recluse on stacks of money is going to be very unsatisfying for him. Think “Sunset Boulevard.”

  105. 105.

    Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian

    The only time I ever listened to Rush was at a pet shop where I bought live crickets for my son’s chameleon. It was … odd being called a feminazi while I waited for the clerk to collect a bag of the doomed critters.

  107. 107.

    gene108

    @redshirt:

    I watched the ESPN Limbaugh McNabb bit live. I knew what was going to happen the minute I saw it – you can’t bring racist shit to sportscasting. Politics? Sure. But not sports.

    I will never forget the look of WTF-disbelief-Anger-and-be-glad-there-are-witnesses-fat boy-or-we’d-be-“playin'”-football-now from the other hosts right after he said his bit.

    You knew he was done from the expression of the other hosts.

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    Uh, one of these names is not like the others.

    (Shhhhhh. I know.)

    And considering Simonon’s unique musical talent, it seems highly unlikely that he is a better drummer. I was just bustin’ on Peart.

  110. 110.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: But of course. Shall be in the US of A for election season (sigh). Although teaching English in Spain has just moved to the top of the Plan B list.

    Got to return to enjoy the last of President Obama’s excellent stewardship (and _ucketlist accomplishing).

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    @Elizabelle:

    They just played “Clocks.” I thought, no way is that a cover band

    In my house, Clocks is known as Coldplay’s cover of the Pokemon Cave Theme.

  116. 116.

    D58826

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/sanderss-scorched-earth-strategy-is-working.html

    Bernie Sanders’s ‘Scorched Earth’ Strategy Seems to Be WorkingBernie Sanders has no realistic path to the Democratic nomination. Despite the protestations of postmodern mathematicians, his campaign is no longer about who will represent Blue America in the main event this fall, but rather, how Hillary Clinton will choose to represent it.

    The socialist senator still refuses to cop to this fact. Earlier this week, he suggested that anyone who thinks Clinton is the presumptive Democratic nominee must harbor a secret longing for authoritarian rule. And his campaign promises to take its fight to the convention, even in the (beyond likely) scenario that Clinton boasts a massive lead in pledged delegates when all the votes are counted.

    In justifying this patently anti-democratic stance, the campaign has encouraged supporters to view its losses as illegitimate – reflections of a process rigged through too few debates, too many closed primaries, and too much cooperation between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton. For some Sanders supporters, this critique has taken on the moral authority of the candidate’s jeremiads against the “rigged” financial system, magnifying the stakes of the primary fight and the animosity they feel toward its likely winner.

    Nevada’s Democratic convention illustrated the hazards of such sentiments. There, Clinton won by 33 votes – after 56 pro-Sanders delegates were disqualified. A fight over exactly two pledged delegates devolved into a bitter melee. America’s worst leftists inundated the state party chairwoman with threatening phone calls. Sanders initially responded by condemning harassment only in the abstract – while condemning the unfair treatment of his Silver State supporters in great detail.

    Elected Democrats responded by railing against the Vermont senator’s aggressive tactics. Liberal commentators warned that this “scorched Earth” strategy was self-defeating: At this point, undermining Clinton would only undermine his future influence within her party.

    But over the past few days, a funny thing happened: A wave of polling data established that Sanders really is undermining Clinton’s prospects in the general election – and the Democratic Party began searching for bones to throw the senator’s way.

    I’m reminded of the Sorcerer’s apprentice who loosed something he could not control.

  117. 117.

    Felanius Kootea

    @srv: When your enemy is making a mistake, you keep quiet and let it happen. The fact that Reince Preibus is talking about this tells you he means the opposite.

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    I wasn’t going to watch this, but Luvvie has convinced me.

    ……………..

    On ROOTS Reimagined and Retelling This Classic Story
    Awesomely Luvvie — May 26, 2016 1 24

    When I first heard that they wanted to remake ROOTS, I legit was like “Bhet why?” The mini-series from 1977, based on Alex Haley‘s book of the same name is one of those classics that everyone knows about even if they haven’t seen. Why touch it? Why do we need to see a new version of the harrowing tale of Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka warrior, stolen and sold into slavery? It was the role that catapulted LeVar Burton into stardom, and it is so strongly HIS that why would they even try to re-do it?
    ………………………………

    Those were my questions when the ROOTS team reached out to me. I was hella skeptical. And then they told me why they were re-imagining (not remaking) ROOTS. It turns out that most millennials (people under 35) have never seen the original ROOTS. We’ve seen clips of the “What’s your name? KUNTA.” scene, but many of us have never sat down to watch it. Me included.

    So they sent me a screener of the first episode of ROOTS Reimagined. Y’all. Y’ALL. I watched it and when it ended, I felt trapped in a glass case of emotions. I felt anger that was visceral. I felt proud, from the resilience of my people. And I felt more than ever that this was necessary. This is a time when this conversation can be really productive.

    I agreed to partner with the History Channel and A+E on this to spread the word because what they’ve done here is fantastic. They put my skepticism to bed after seeing that episode, and the care they took to tell a story that was layered, as complete as it could be, but also relevant to the pace we absorb things in now.

    Episode one spends a lot of time in Africa, where we learn who Kunta Kinte was, who he came from and how he came to be who he was before he was stolen from his home to become a slave in the United States.

  121. 121.

    debbie

    I think the Clinton campaign should set up video booths at their rallies. People could step inside and answer the question, “What adjective is Donald Trump?” I’d bet splicing a bunch of their responses together would make great ads. Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t have to carry all of the water.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie: So true. This is not like everyday, for sure. (1) Barcelona. (2) A little magic to open the window for some fresh air, and there is Coldplay.

    @MomSense: Could not speak to Pokemon, but will take your word.

  124. 124.

    M. Bouffant

    He’s gone from WABC in New York, WRKO in Boston and KFI in Los Angeles, for example

    KFI (part of iHeart media, formerly Clear Channel) took Rush & some of the other idjits they broadcast & put them all on another station they own which is now called “The Patriot” (call sign KEIB, as in Limbaugh’s “Excellence in Broadcasting”) which, sad irony, used to be the local Air America station.

    Limbaugh’s replacement is a guy & gal morning team. Most of the people on KFI now are local idiots, but there’s still a right-wing tinge to them. Their afternoon drive has a pair of local ninnies who drool the right-wing line consistently.

  125. 125.

    gene108

    @Roger Moore:

    The biggest advantage that sports has is that people are ultimately forced to pay attention to evidence. There’s a scoreboard that tells you who won and who lost, and endless stats that tell you how it happened. I guess you could say that politics has the equivalent of a scoreboard, but it’s obviously possible to do well in elections while being completely disconnected from the process of governing. Not so much in sports.

    A plugged in sports fan not only knows the “evidence” as you put, but the inside and out of the stats that lead to the evidence, how those stats compare to historical trends, and which major sportsball players had contributions – good and bad – to the game.

    Imagine people knowing that much about economics that when someone says “tax cuts pay for themselves” thousands of angry voices answer back with revenue data regarding Bush, Jr’s tax cuts or how Reagan reversed course in tax cuts after his blew a hole in the deficit, in 1981-1982.

    I honestly wish people were as plugged into politics, economics, etc as they are into sports.

  129. 129.

    Origuy

    @Elizabelle:

    My Barcelona apartment is in Poble Sec. I am hearing Coldplay play live, very close, maybe a few blocks from my apartment.

    I had to look up where Poble Sec is. It’s close to the Olympic Stadium in Montjuic. You can probably hear a band there from your apartment. I saw Van Halen and Bon Jovi there in 1995. I want to go back to Spain!

  132. 132.

    rikyrah

    @MazeDancer:

    He wants to be able to be a rage spewing asshole and have people react positively. Not the situation he has now where he can’t express his true feelings because then people will call him a Nazi.

    Isn’t this what folks like me have been saying?

    This isn’t about freedom of speech.

    This is about freedom from the CONSEQUENCES of expressing that ‘ freedom of speech’.

    They want to be able to party like it’s 1948, where a WHITE MALE, cause that’s who we’re talking about…

    could go around and call me Nigger, without there being any consequences.

    Well, today, if he does it, he doesn’t know or not, if he’s rolled up ‘ the wrong one’,. and his teeth will wind up looking like Chicklets on the pavement. And, that’s the lesser of what could happen to him.

    Nobody’s playing with these muthaphuckas.

    He’s all big and bad..then BE all big and bad…

    but, accept the consequences for being all big and bad…

    Man……PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE.

  134. 134.

    nutella

    @Mike in NC:

    Mitt in all likelihood will have a sudden change of heart and jump on the Drumpf bandwagon before the convention.

    Or possibly he’ll get strapped to the roof of the bandwagon as it drives off.

  139. 139.

    Gelfling545

    @Ella in New Mexico: I haven’t been able to figure out how anyone could be led to believe that their lot in life would be improved if only they could call others offensive names, etc. I think I might have it figured out now. It’s mommy issues! Mommy said to be polite, share, not call names, etc. and they’re going to show that…er…witch that she’s not the boss of them.

  145. 145.

    redshirt

    @Elizabelle: So jealous. I spent 3 days in Barcelona at the end of a month in Europe because it was the warmest place I could get to on the Eurail and I had run out of money. So I slept in the Pablo Picasso park for two nights and it’s the only time I’ve been homeless. I also stole food from two restaurants because I hadn’t eaten in like 24 hours. Sorry, Barcelona.

    I’d love to go back – with money.

  150. 150.

    J R in WV

    @Baud:

    That guy’s girl friend would wind up in a camp if Trump gets elected, and he would probably choose NOT to join her there. He’s 22 and doesn’t remember the 2008 election, much less know anything about political history of the USA.

    In another country he wouldn’t be allowed to vote without taking and passing a civics class, as pig ignorant as he is. He tells us that people have called him racist, fascist, bigoted.

    Maybe he should be wondering why people call him that?

    Maybe because he is one? Thinking so!

  153. 153.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Who the fuck asked about the race of his wife? Is this supposed to be an accomplishment because she’s Asian?

    It is supposed to prove that he’s not racist. You are intended to be impressed.

    I couldn’t read much past that point. Or rather, that was the point at which I decided that the remaining minutes of my life are too few to be spent exploring the shallow depths of the interviewee’s thoughts and feelings.

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