Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The idiot can’t shut up and it will be fun watching Young Conor’s fine, Horace-quoting, Republican friends continue to defend him:
Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything that I know to be right and wrong, I descended to their level when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke. That was my error.
The more this clown is in the news the more we win.
Keep saying “the war on women”.
It is not my habit to listen to Wingnut blowhards. I don’t think I’ve listen to Rush Limbaugh for years, but on Friday afternoon I was driving around and noticed that it was about ten to three. So, I thought I would catch the last segment of his show. What I noticed was commercials–a lot of them. And that reminded me how the Limbaugh show was mostly a grift about getting rubes to open their wallets for this, that or the other pitch. Some were legitimate businesses–your mattress companies, your computer software or gadget and the like. Others were multi-level marketing deals with referral kick-backs for anybody who mentions the show when placing an order. And others–most of them it seems–were straight up grifts to fluff up Rushbo’s wallet and fund this or that aspect of the wingnut money machine. The legitimate advertisers are the cover for the grifters. They are the honey pot to attract the rubes to scams to fund the cons funding the CONsevative movement–and Rush is the sideshow barker saying anything to pull the rubes in the door so that their wallets can be relieved of their Dead Presidents.
By Friday afternoon, Rush had already double down on his slander of Sandra Fluke and he was feeling the pressure of the blowback. Sponsors/advertisers–the real businesses and not the wingnut grifters–were pulling their ads. Republicans everywhere were under pressure to condemn Rush’s slander and their fear of Rush was beginning to be offset by fears of an angry electorate in November. Within 24 hours, Rush would be forced to issue a non-apology apology and look weak. It would not stop the storm of outrage, but even that lame-ass word string was a signal of weakness from the Leader of the Republican Party and the CONservative movement. When the commercials finally ended and the Master blowhard took to the mic, you could hear his fear.
It was in every phrase. Every word. He was pleading. Whinny. And full of self-pity. He verbally thrashed and sought a scapegoat. Naturally he decided that all of his actions were President Obama’s fault. Fear was in his voice as he tried to craft an alternate reality where President Obama’s support for women to be in control of their health care choices forced poor old Rushbo to call Sandra Fluke a slut and a whore.
Doug is spot on. Limbaugh’s apology is a clear sign that we are winning and that it is time to kick them while they are down and hand them anchors, anvils and millstones.
The effort to get advertisers to pull their ads from Limbaugh’s show is working. If you haven’t joined the fun, I urge your to get involved. Here is a link to one Boycott Rush effort, and another, and another. I’m certain that there are more and that more will surface.
Getting the advertiser to separate from Rush is important. It hits him in the wallet, but more than that it removes the cover for all the other grifts he runs on his minions day after day. And it exposes every local radio station that caries the rat bastard to financial pressure and can send a warning flag to any advertiser supporting these stations. And Soonergrunt is correct to point out the effort to get Armed Forces Radio to stop carrying somebody who is so actively anti-American (you can help that effort here).
Every bully goes too far one day. For Joe McCarthy it was the Army-McCarthy Hearings. For Bobby Knight it was choking a player.. Perhaps–if our Nation is lucky–this is the end of the line for Rush Limbaugh. He knows he stepped in it. You can hear the fear in his voice. There is no justification for his bullshit any longer and anybody who defends him is a coward, a fool or both.
I could hear the fear in his voice and I think we should all do what we can do to make that fear grow in the coming weeks.
He is down from a self-inflicted wound and it is time to kick him.
Cheers
A dispatch from Real Murka (h/t):
I have written a couple comments about my daughter regarding this birth control issue. She is on birth control and has been for almost a year now- not for sexual activity and pregnancy prevention, but even if that were the case so what?!?! No, instead beantown girl suffers from menorrhagia and secondary dysmenorrhea.
[…]My daughter took a trip with the school band for 5 days just a week and a half ago. Any student on prescription medication had to have a form filled out and signed by the prescribing physician turned in before the trip. The day of the trip, the prescription medication was given to the doctor who was traveling with the students. He would hand out the medication as prescribed. For beantown girl, this was every morning after breakfast. She never thought a thing about it- neither did I. They returned from their trip…
[….]They lined up behind my daughter to get their lunch tray and started in on her. “Birth control whore”, “I told my mom you were on the pill and she said you were nothing but a little tramp” “My mom said some guy she listens to on the radio was just talking about girls like you- he even said you were a slut!” “Yeah, my mom said the same thing, said it’s about time people spoke up and weren’t afraid to tell the truth”! They laughed, they harassed, they said so many things my daughter couldn’t begin to remember it all- she walked back to her table without food and told her friends what was going on. She cried through lunch and through the rest of the day. She said she almost went to the office to call me to come get her but she was trying to be strong and not let them win! The last class of the day, however, was the final straw- it’s her history class and 2 of these little monsters are in the class with her. They start the class off by talking about current events. One of the little witches brought up Rush Limbaugh and the (male) teacher said that he was an American Icon- sometimes he says things that can be construed as insensitive but overall, he was one of the few people left in today’s media who was not afraid to speak the truth!
They are we who we thought they were.
But what about that time the anonymous MoveOn member used “Hitler” and “Bush” in the same sentence? Both sides do it, and you all deserve Moore Award nominations if you suggest otherwise. The true heroes are the Olympia Snowes of the world, who dare not criticize a great American icon like Rush Limbaugh.
I usually accept that. I understand that giving military aid to Israel at a level that is pretty close to aid to the whole rest of the region is something I can’t really stop. Never mind that Israel in my lifetime, and particularly under Likud, has consistently worked at cross purposes to US national security goals and perogatives in the region. That’s a fight I’m never going to win. Hell, I’m not even going to be allowed in the ring for it. There are weapons programs that I think should be cancelled, and I’m not a fan at all of subsidies for ethanol, among various things I would refuse to fund. I understand that I don’t get to pick and choose.
But there are some fights that are worth fighting. When I was in the Army in Europe, the first hour of the Rush Limbaugh show was on Armed Forces Radio for an hour every day. That’s still the case today. Back then, he was a LOT more popular than he is today, and whether I liked it or not, there was something to the point that, due to his popularity stateside, the Armed Forces Radio and TV Service had an obligation to play his show if they were to maintain their standard of popularity without respect to political viewpoint. Particularly after a bunch of whackjob Republicans (there used to be other kinds, I swear) in the House of Representatives made a stink about how our troops were being denied the right to listen to him. Leaving aside the fact that no one I knew except a couple of right-winger Medical Officers were fans, there was a point. Kind of. Just to make sure we’re all clear, very few people I know listened to AF Radio over there at all. Today, with eight channels on Armed Forces TV (there was one when I was in Germany) there’s even less reason to listen to the radio. That’s just the way the world is for everything. I listened to NPR when I was over there, but when I was in Afghanistan the last time, I streamed NPR over the internet when I could do so. To my knowledge, Limbaugh’s TV show was never on Armed Forces Television.
But today, there is no point to maintaining his show on AFRTS. He is nowhere near as popular as he used to be. His market penetration is but a fraction of its former level. His show has always been a showcase of racism, bigotry, and misogyny. Additionally, it’s an element of a climate that conservatives, both in and out of the military use to prop up the claim that the military is conservative or has conservative leanings. Now that the last trappings of popularity have fallen away from him, that is the last vestige of reason for his continued presence on AFRTS. It’s past time that we got rid of this hour of denigrating the women and minorities who serve honorably by a man who dodged the draft and is a convicted felon and drug addict. You all need to write and call your Congresspeople and Senators. This is one of those things that we can actually win. We should not be using taxpayer money to support hate speech, and certainly not to the military.
EDIT: H/T to commenters Svensker and JGabriel in thread–HERE is the Whitehouse.gov petition to SECDEF Panetta to remove the Rush Limbaugh show from AFRTS. I’ll note that petitions are great, but you should also call your Congresscritters and it wouldn’t hurt to call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111 and leave a message.
My taxes support things with which I do not agreePost + Comments (50)
This woman won’t stop digging:
Karen Handel, the former senior vice president of public policy at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, accused Planned Parenthood of extortion during an appearance on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
The charity faced a public backlash after the Associated Press learned that it was halting their partnership with Planned Parenthood because of recently adopted criteria prohibiting grants to organizations under local, state, or federal investigation. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) had called for an investigation of Planned Parenthood to ensure that no public funds had been spent to carry out abortions.
“It’s clear that Planned Parenthood proactively went to [the Associated Press],” Handel said. “On top of that, what is even more disturbing is the gross mischaracterization of the decision, the solid evidence that this was a premeditated, orchestrated attack on a breast cancer organization.”
***“This was nothing sort of a shake down,” she said. “To watch what played out, and somehow an organization like Planned Parenthood to be held up as sort of the face of the women’s movement was stunning to me. There is clearly a real bias around this, that somehow the right to an abortion equals women’s rights, and I reject that. It is outrageous, absolutely outrageous.”
Handel ran for Georgia governor in 2010, but lost to Democrat Nathan Deal. Part of her political platform was ensuring no taxpayer funds were used by Planned Parenthood.
Emails that have surfaced since the controversy began show that Handel was in fact behind the decision, although Komen founder Nancy G. Brinker has repeatedly denied that.
How could this be a premeditated attack on Komen when Planned Parenthood was simply reacting to what the fetus fetishists like Handle were doing to them? Planned Parenthood was simply reacting to the fact that Komen cut off funding for breast exams.
Is every single member of the right delusional? Do any of them have any grounding in reality? And do they really have nothing other than victimhood? Karen Handel tried to screw Planned Parenthood, and it backfired on her and Komen. They are not victims here.
Here’s Another Delusional Right-Wing LiarPost + Comments (45)
Yesterday, Ed Morrissey blatantly lied about Sandra Fluke, claiming the following: “However, let’s keep in mind that it was Fluke who made her sexual activity a matter of national political debate…”
This is a lie, and there is no other way to put it. Nowhere in her testimony did she mention her sex life or her sexual activities. She just didn’t. Read the transcript for yourself, and then tell me whether she is gay or straight, celibate, a virgin, in a current relationship, or even the most basic details of her sexual life and activities. You can’t, because she didn’t discuss that at all. Ed Morrissey is simply lying.
So I called him on it. I generously offered to write a check to the RNC for $1000.00 if Ed would show me where in the testimony Miss Fluke discussed her sexual activites. This is his failure of a response:
Speaking of obtuse, one lib blogger and his followers have been polluting my twitter timeline with a stupid “bet” challenge (shades of Mitt Romney!) saying that Fluke didn’t discuss her sex life with Congress. Here’s the testimony Fluke gave, in which she offered story after story about how her friends couldn’t afford contraception despite having decided to go to a law school run by Jesuits that costs tens of thousands of dollars each year, and which concluded with this passage in demanding that government force insurers, employers and her Catholic law school provide contraception for free:
“In the media lately, some conservative Catholic organizations have been asking what did we expect when we enroll in a Catholic school?
“We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success.
“We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of ‘cura personalis‘ – to care for the whole person – by meeting all of our medical needs.
“We expected that when we told our universities of the problem this policy created for us as students, they would help us.
“We expected that when 94% of students oppose the policy the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for – completely unsubsidized by the university.=
“We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that we should have gone to school elsewhere.
“And even if that meant going to a less prestigious university, we refuse to pick between a quality education and our health. And we resent that in the 21st century, anyone think it’s acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women.[“]In case they missed this in English class, we is a self-inclusive pronoun. Otherwise, the correct pronoun would have been they. And in the real world, contraception involves sexual activity. No one was talking about the sex life of Georgetown law school students until Fluke made it an issue and claimed to represent the group, including herself.
This is what liars look like when they are confronted with the truth. First the condescending bluster- I’m just “one lib blogger.” I’m beneath him. Why, he is Ed Morrissey of the Hot Air network. Ed Morrissey has known me by name for ten years. We used to link to each other frequently, and I was a commenter on his blog. But caught in a lie, he needs to bluster his way through it. Second, this was not a bet like Mitt Romney. I don’t want his money. I’m offering to donate to a cause of his liking if he will just back up his rhetoric. I feel pretty safe with my money, btw, because Ed cannot back up his lie.
The rest of it is just incomprehensible gibberish, followed with some more condescension, and then the magical decision that any discussion of contraception involves a discussion of your sex life and therefore we can conclude someone is a slut and it is their fault because they mentioned birth control. Got it? By Ed’s logic, any anti-abortion activist who testifies in front of congress has opened up a public debate on their sex life, because abortion involves sex at some point. He can’t possibly be this stupid.
He’s still lying. Why? I don’t know. Just admit you were wrong and move on.
*** Update ***
From the comments:
So the bishops, priests, and other men who testified about birth control are sluts? And their sex life is fair game for discussion?
Guess so, if we apply the Special Ed illogic.
Are you beginning to understand why Republicans dumped Perry in part because he thought it was a good idea to vaccinate young women?
Ed Morrissey Is Still Lying About Sandra FlukePost + Comments (125)
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.