The usual suspects:
We can do better, America.
Glenn Beck Called President Obama A Girl…
…says the very manly, lavender sweater-wearing, doughy pants-load, who’s angrily pointing his manicured finger at the empty space in his studio, and who’s so afraid of absolutely every harebrained conspiracy theory imaginable (and most of his own fans) that he pays $1 million a year for personal security.
Glenn Beck is undoubtedly the very essence of masculinity (to the heavily-medicated):
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“Survival seeds. Also known as… seeds.”
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Bill Maher explains why Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh do so well financially – and why it’s that conservative business model which Palin will undoubtedly cash in on as well:
“They don’t care about winning elections; they care about separating rubes from their money. They discovered that there’s a fortune to be made by keeping a small portion of America under the illusion that they are always under attack, from Mexicans or ACORN or Planned Parenthood or gays or takers, global warming hoaxers — it doesn’t matter. They don’t want a majority; they want a mailing list, a list of the kind of gullible ‘Honey Boo Boos’ out there who think that there’s a ‘War on Christmas’ and the Socialist policies of our Kenyan President have been so disastrous that the end of the world is coming.
[...] Glenn Beck has only 300,000 subscribers, so they’ll never be a majority. But it doesn’t matter. Maybe they can only vote once every two years, but they can buy the same book every three weeks… the exact same book, over and over and over again.
I don’t know why being a Republican means needing to have your faith recharged five times a day like Dick Cheney’s heart. Because there’s no comparable industry on the left devoted to separating liberals from their cash. I mean, unless you count Whole Foods.”
“…There are a lot of people whose livelihoods depend on keeping lots of conservatives terrified and ill-informed. The groups that exist to raise funds raise more funds when they endorse the crazier candidate. So even if you don’t particularly care that regular conservative Americans are constantly being scammed by their media apparatus, you should still worry about the influence of the scammers. The fact that there is a lot of money to be made in acting like Michele Bachmann is part of why the House seems poised to blow up the U.S. economy. The fact that conservatives have that much contempt for their own true believers neatly explains how they govern when they actually have power.”
— The conservative movement is still an elaborate moneymaking venture – Alex Pareene – Salon (via)
Get off my lawn! Why some older men are so grouchy
The look: A scowling face, a wagging finger, and a shaking head. The targets: The economy. Teenagers. Windmills. Some informally dub it “grumpy old man complex.” British author Carol Wyer labels it “irritable male syndrome,” a spike in the outward crankiness of guys of a certain age. As more baby boomers hit 60 — the age when male grumpiness seems to kick in — be ready for a growing chorus of grouchy flare-ups, like a Donald Trumprant set to explode.[...]
Testosterone levels generally fall as men age, according to the Mayo Clinic. Such hormone drops are known to dampen male moods, says Dr. Ridwan Shabsigh, head of the International Society of Men’s Health and a urologist in New York City. “Testosterone is a hormone that grows muscles, reduces fat in the body, affects energy, and improves sexual desire,” Shabsigh says. “However, it also has neural-psycho effects. And in some men we encounter in our practice, those affects can be mostly visible: low mood and irritability.”
image: addictinginfo
MMFA has many, many comments and examples on these questions. Here are two:
The Atlantic‘s Friedersdorf: Misinformation From Fox And Conservative Media Cost Romney The Election. Conor Friedersdorf wrote for The Atlantic that “right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh’s show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you’re a rank-and-file conservative, you’re probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn’t accurately inform you about Election 2012.” Friedersdorf continued:
How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don’t Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn’t grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man’s record nor repudiate it. [The Atlantic, 11/7/12]
SF Chronicle Columnist Carroll: “Could It Be That The Fox Model Has Played Out?” In a November 9 column, the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Jon Carroll described watching Fox, MSNBC, and PBS on Election Night. He wrote:
You had to wonder about Fox. This is the third presidential election in which Fox has been a major player, and the Democrats have won two of them. A combination of big money and big propaganda was supposed to carry the day for Romney and the Republicans, but it didn’t.
Could it be that the Fox model has played out? Could it be that the lack of civility and grace, the embrace of the most extreme candidates as long as they were Republicans, indeed, the whole idea behind Roger Ailes’ brainchild — a pimping station for the far right — may be politically bankrupt? [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/9/12]
The same questions could be asked about “leader of the GOP” Rush Limbaugh:
“…every time a new Republican president is elected, Limbaugh gets invited to the White House. Conservative think tanks lavish him with awards. Republican politicians are eager to appear on his show, where they talk to him like an old friend. And among rank-and-file conservatives, Limbaugh is easily the most popular voice in America. Given all that, how can it possibly surprise anyone that lots of black people perceive the conservative movement as a hostile entity?” — The GOP Must Choose: Rush Limbaugh or Minority Voters
The GOP has so many problems it needs to address at this point, if it hopes to ever rebuild itself into a viable choice in a healthy two-party system. Republicans have to see that Fox (and Limbaugh, et al.) have done nothing but drag their entire party into the fringe of rightwing extremism. The Republican Party is currently inhabiting a place where great wealth is protected with pure psych-ops on its non-wealthy base, where facts are politically harmful, racism gets people excited, and stupidity is a badge of honor. What direction the GOP will go from here is anyone’s guess.
via: gop-circus
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American mass media company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It was founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and Red McCombs, and was taken private by Bain Capital LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP in a leveraged buyout in 2008. – Wikipedia
Think Progress’s Ken Sofer and Molly Bernstein report on the REAL threats to the safety and security of American citizens today:
Though the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City happened nearly two decades ago, (17 years ago on April 19) right-wing extremist terrorism remains a significant domestic threat to American security. The Department of Homeland Security released a report in 2009 stating that the economic and political climate bears important similarities to the conditions of the early 1990s when right-wing extremism experienced a dramatic resurgence. These conditions, including the public debate around hot-button issues such as immigration, gun control, and abortion, along with the election of the first African-American president, present “unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment,” the report said.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano eventually ordered the report withdrawn because of significant political backlash from mainstream conservatives. But the report, which was originally commissioned by the Bush administration, also found that “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.”
A look at terrorist incidents since the Oklahoma City bombing, including both successful and disrupted ideologically-motivated attacks, backs up the conclusions of the DHS report:
Fifty-six percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. since 1995 have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists, as compared to 30 percent by ecoterrorists and 12 percent by Islamic extremists. Right-wing extremism has been responsible for the greatest number of terrorist incidents in the U.S. in 13 of the 17 years since the Oklahoma City bombing.
After DHS withdrew the report, the department cut the number of analysts studying non-Islamic domestic terrorism. Daryl Johnson, the primary author of the report and a self-described Republican, soon left his post at DHS and said in July, 2011 that DHS has “just one person” dealing with domestic terrorism. The Department has largely been silent on domestic terrorist threats ever since.
Although current statistics show that right-wing extremism is on the rise through groups like the Sovereign Citizen and Patriot movements, domestic counterterrorism continues to receive few resources and little public attention. Though Islamic extremism remains a significant domestic security threat, current statistics and incidents such as Oklahoma City show that it is far from the only threat. In order to protect American citizens, we need to match our resources to the reality of our threats, not just the politically expedient narratives we have formed.
As long as the media and average people pretend that ‘both sides do it’ and decide that it’s okay for self-described ‘patriots’ to rabidly hate President Obama, Democrats, and the federal government — and as long as everyone continues to look the other way when right-wing attitudes manifest themselves publicly, in the form of open racism and / or violent rhetoric, we’ll be under threat as a society and a functioning country.
Ask yourself if the fictional right-wing, Fox “News” created, tea party celebrated ‘creeping Sharia law’ is more of a threat to our country than the very real and ongoing use of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. Recall Sarah Palin’s creative ‘sniper rifle symbols’ on Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the aftermath. Think of Breitbart-protégé James O’Keefe and his ‘pimp costume’ and ACORN and the fictional Democratic voter fraud issue (as we’ve learned, Mitt Romney, the presumed GOP presidential candidate, actually committed voter fraud).
Or look at the most recent example of our politically correct, both sides do it, national discourse:
The ‘outrage’ for the right was something said by a CNN commentator about a candidate’s wife and was, in fact, entirely true. The ‘outrage’ for the left, which should be an outrage for the entire country, was a thinly-veiled threat against the life of our sitting president, for purposes of demonstrating the speaker’s Southern Strategy bona fides in front of an NRA crowd. With our history of political assassinations and attempted assassinations, should we ever take such rhetoric lightly?
While you think about which outrage received the most national attention and why, you might also ask yourself how your silence on such matters not only contributes to the escalation of ignorance in our national discourse, but encourages some Beck- or Palin-inspired Manchurian candidate to prove his ‘Super Patriotism’ in the form of action. Sort of like this guy, who has been happily expressing his right-wing ideals in court all last week:
[Anders Behring Breivik] identified as his enemy the “cultural Marxists” who he said had destroyed Norway by using it as “a dumping ground for the surplus births of the third world”. Claiming Norwegians would be a minority in their own capital “within five years”, he blamed liberal politicians for bringing about Norway’s demise with “feminism, quotas … transforming the church, schools”.
The 69 people, many of them teenagers, who died on the island of Utøya when he opened fire on the youth camp of the ruling Labour party were “not innocent”, he claimed.
“They were not innocent, non-political children; these were young people who worked to actively uphold multicultural values. Many people had leading positions in the leading Labour party youth wing,” he said, going on to compare the Labour party’s youth wing (AUF) with the Hitler Youth.
…or he’s off his meds. In any case, Beck is currently on an ‘I Need Attention / Mo’ Money’ Tour:
Beck: We have a ‘righteous calling’ to lead a ‘new civil rights movement’
Former Fox News personality Glenn Beck said he believed Tuesday morning that he was capable of leading a “new civil rights movement” in America after claiming that fascism was coming to Europe.
Appearing on televangelist James Robison’s Life Today show, Beck commented on the popular Occupy Wall Street movement.
“We are in an era now of a new civil rights movement,” he said. “We are the ones that have the righteous calling for the civil rights movement. We are the ones. When you try to say that Martin Luther King would have been there with the rapes and the murders and everything else with Occupy Wall Street, I’m sorry, you are wrong.”
Don’t forget Beck is also going to start thrilling the nation with weekly “Reagan-esque” speeches from his newly built “Oval Office” set.
It’s funny how someone can remind you of someone else, whether it’s because of a resemblance in appearance or a similarity in personality or thought-process. Remember John List and the reasons he gave for killing his entire family?
List was described by a psychiatrist as having obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. A psychiatrist who interviewed List testified that he saw only two solutions to his family’s financial and health problems – either go on welfare or kill his family and send their souls to heaven. He was especially concerned about the soul of his daughter, Patty, who showed little interest in church. She was also active in the theater department, smoked marijuana, and was interested in Wicca. He was afraid that welfare would expose them to ridicule, show that List did not love them, and violate his own authoritarian father’s teachings to always care for and protect the family. [Wikipedia]
See, Beck says he has a righteous calling (!) now — and that’s not any old ordinary calling. Beware of men who claim to be burdened with such a grandiose affliction, especially when they say it’s for another person’s own good.
————————————-WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY
Rick Santorum: thanks for the memories — “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better” with taxpayer money (which he of course qualified as “blah” people). - He said women aren’t capable of serving in combat because there would be “emotions that are involved.” - “I refer to global warming as not climate science, but political science.” - He told a mother her gay son is engaging in unhealthy activity that the government should not “promote.” - Santorum is pro-income inequality. -Santorum promised to significantly reduce federal funding for food stamps, arguing that the nation’s increasing obesity rates render the program unnecessary. - He called contraception a “license to do things” - Santorum found “it almost remarkable for a black man” to be pro-choice. - He told a rape victim: “Make the best out of a bad situation” - In 1994, the candidate said single moms are just “breeding more criminals.” [ThinkProgress]
Idaho’s only black lawmaker gets KKK membership invite – On Saturday, Democratic state Rep. Cherie Buckner-Webb used her Facebook page to share photos of the KKK “application,” which asked for $35 and a proclamation that she was “a White Christian man or woman.”…“(It) was addressed by hand,” the lawmaker noted. “Something a little unsettling.” [...] “Initially, I wondered what was someone’s thought process in sending that to me. My first inclination was someone wants me to know the Klan is still around,” she explained. “I am really concerned about the climate of intolerance in a lot of different areas. I see a lot of intolerance toward gays, toward women,” the Boise Democrat said, recalling recent legislative battles over LGBT rights, abortion and contraception. “I would be a fool not to take note and govern myself accordingly,” she added. “It was a sign for me to remain vigilant, to remain careful and to remain thoughtful.”
George Zimmerman’s Attorneys Quit, Say Client ‘Disappeared’ – The attorneys claim that Zimmerman repeatedly rebuffed their legal advice, and that they have now lost contact with him. “On Monday we began fielding questions…’did we know anything about (this) website?’ And our initial response was, well that’s probably bogus, we don’t know anything about that. And we started making inquiries and frankly confirmed that he, through friends or family, had in fact set that site up and it was legitimate. We immediately began telling the media, disregard the earlier website we gave you that we had set up. Go for the one we now know that he set up.” “We were happy enough with that, but disturbed that he had not communicated with us,” Uhrig said. The attorneys said that Zimmerman repeatedly ignored their legal advice. “We learned that he had called Sean Hannity of Fox News directly — not through us,” Uhrig said. “We believe that he spoke directly with Sean off the record and [Hannity's] not even willing to tell us what our client told him.”
Because this wouldn’t be at all weird or basically insane –
Glenn Beck, once a shining star in the conservative universe, has seen his influence fade a bit since leaving Fox News to set out on his own. Now he’s built a replica of the oval office to give “Reagan-esque” speeches, so says the Glenn Beck TV Team. [tpmmedia]
———————————————————–——PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS
President Obama Makes the Case for the Buffett Rule – Instead of giving more than a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the very wealthiest Americans—those who make more than $250,000 a year—we need to be investing in the things like education and research and health care. These are the same investments we’ve been making for generations because they lead to strong, broad based economic growth that helps everyone, as the President explained: “What drags our entire economy down is when the benefits of economic growth and productivity go only to the few, which is what’s been happening for over a decade now, and gap between those at the very, very top and everybody else keeps growing wider and wider and wider and wider.” The fact is, the share of our national income going to the top 1 percent of earners is as high as it’s been since the 1920s. And those same people are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years. To address this imbalance in our tax system, President Obama has proposed the Buffett Rule, based on the simple idea that people who make more than $1 million each year pay at least the same share of their income in taxes as middle-class families do…
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Beyond a Buffett Rule, the Obama We’ve Been Waiting For – Later, in the speech, he sharpened his criticism of the Republican embrace of zombie-eyed granny-starving to a sharper point, daring the GOP to produce a list of things they would actually cut to make the pixie-dust math of the Ryan budget actually work. “They won’t do it,” he told the crowd, “because they know, if they do, they’ll lose.” This appeal to honesty and political courage likely will fall on deaf ears, alas. (How do I know this? Because of an interview that zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan gave to the Christian Broadcasting Network in which he spectacularly attempted to wedge zombie-eyed granny-starving into the Gospels: “A person’s faith is central to how they conduct themselves in public and in private,” Ryan said in an interview released on Tuesday by the Christian Broadcasting Network. “So to me, using my Catholic faith, we call it the social magisterium, which is how do you apply the doctrine of your teaching into your everyday life as a lay person.” First of all, he doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about. The social magisterium of the Church is a lot of things, but consonant with supply-side trickle-down economics is definitely not one of them, no matter how hard the crowd at First Things tries to make it so.
Elizabeth Warren Nabs Planned Parenthood Endorsement In Massachusetts Senate Race – The Planned Parenthood Action Fund said their decision to endorse Warren was partly due to Brown’s support of the Blunt Amendment, of which he was a co-sponsor. The amendment would have allowed employers and insurers the right to deny coverage for any procedure that contradicts their moral or religious beliefs. Warren opposed the failed amendment to the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s health care reform law. “Now more than ever, Massachusetts voters want and deserve to be represented in Congress by someone who puts smart policies ahead of political ideologies,” said Dianne Luby, president of the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund in Massachusetts, in a statement.
Food Stamp Program Helping Reduce Poverty – A new study by the Agriculture Department has found that food stamps, one of the country’s largest social safety net programs, reduced the poverty rate substantially during the recent recession. The food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, reduced the poverty rate by nearly 8 percent in 2009, the most recent year included in the study, a significant impact for a social program whose effects often go unnoticed by policy makers. The food stamp program is one of the largest antipoverty efforts in the country, serving more than 46 million people.
“Because if we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.” – William Faulkner on the lynching of Emmett Till, 60 years ago
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His hoodie killed Trayvon Martin as surely as George Zimmerman.—
Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) March 23, 2012
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via: cognitivedissonance
Geraldo Rivera: Trayvon Martin’s ‘Hoodie Is As Much Responsible For [His] Death As George Zimmerman’ (VIDEO) - Geraldo Rivera provoked outrage on Friday when he said that slain teenager Trayvon Martin was partially responsible for his death because he was wearing a hoodie. The Fox News host later revealed that even his own son was dismayed by the comments. Speaking on Friday’s “Fox and Friends,” Rivera said, “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” Martin was unarmed when he was shot dead by a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer named George Zimmerman in late February. His death has become a national tragedy, fueled by the police’s controversial handling of the case.
misterdelfuego: Suspicious brown person in a hoodie…
reagan-was-a-horrible-president: asking for it
http://geraldoinahoodie.tumblr.com/
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Meet George Zimmerman: He Is the NRA
Just days after the Trayvon Martin tragedy, the NRA was working on Capitol Hill to nationalize Florida’s vigilante mentality. The gun lobby has gotten U.S. senators to introduce a bill that will force states like New York with strong gun laws to follow Florida’s model of arming criminals and killers. Led by Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska), they call S.B. 2188, the National Reciprocity Act.
We call it the George Zimmerman Armed Vigilante Act.
S.B. 2188, which is a companion to H.B. 822, would allow the tens of thousands of concealed carry permit holders, such as those with violent backgrounds similar to Zimmerman’s, to take their guns and their “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality into Times Square, downtown Los Angeles, Main Street in Des Moines, Iowa, or to your community.
If your state has tougher, more sensible laws, that might prevent someone like George Zimmerman — who had an arrest record – from getting a concealed carry permit, tough luck. This new bill would force your state to honor concealed carry permits of other states, even states like Florida, with abhorrently low standards.
In fact, you can get a Florida permit to carry loaded, hidden guns in public through the mail or online. This means, if the NRA has its way in Congress, a George Zimmerman in your state can get a Florida permit without leaving his couch and walk your streets, armed and dangerous, and there is nothing you or your local law enforcement can do about it. Continue…
via: randomactsofchaos
via: silas216
via: thenoobyorker
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.…I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. Every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.” – President BARACK OBAMA, in his first remarks on the murder of Trayvon Martin.
via: liberalsarecool
1) YOUR 21ST CENTURY REPUBLICAN PARTY:
Lindsey Graham on Afghanistan Civilian Massacre: ‘These Things Happen’ - ”No, I believe, one, this is tragic and will be investigated, and that soldier will be held accountable for his actions under the military justice system. Unfortunately, these things happen in war. You had an Israeli soldier kill worshippers by the Dome of the Rock mosque. You just have to push through these things.” Yeah, I’m sure if an Afghan national walked into a shopping mall and slaughtered 16 Americans — including 9 children — Graham’s response would be, “Well, sh*t happens. Onward.”
Mississippi and Alabama: is this where brain cells go to die? - In Mississippi only 12% of voters think Obama’s a Christian to 52% who think he’s a Muslim and 36% who are not sure. In Alabama just 14% think Obama’s a Christian to 45% who think he’s a Muslim and 41% who aren’t sure. [...] In Mississippi …only 54% of voters think [interracial marriage] should be legal, while 29% believe it should be illegal. [...] Finally there’s considerable skepticism about evolution among GOP voters in both Alabama and Mississippi. In Alabama only 26% of voters believe in it, while 60% do not. In Mississippi just 22% believe in it, while 66% do not.…
2) MITT ROMNEY:
Romney will not enroll in Medicare - According to BuzzFeed, Romney, who has advocated for the wealthiest Americans to take lower public insurance benefits, announced through his campaign that he would not be apart of the entitlement program. The former Massachusetts governor and his team have repeatedly stated inaccurate information on Medicare throughout the course of the campaign, including claiming Medicare is going “bankrupt” and accusing President Obama of cutting benefits for seniors through the Affordable Care Act. Romney wants to raise the Medicare’s eligibility age up from 65 by one month per year and eventually tie the age to life expectancy.…
Romney Rules Out Santorum as Veep - Mitt Romney told Fox News that he would not pick Rick Santorum as his running mate because he’s not conservative enough. Said Romney: “Well, that would preclude, of course, Rick Santorum. Because, I mean, look at his record. I find it interesting that he continues to describe himself as the real conservative. This is the guy who voted against right-to-work. This is the guy who voted to fund Planned Parenthood. This is the person who voted to raise the debt ceiling five times? … Rick Santorum is not a person who is an economic conservative to my right.” [image: phroyd]3) RICK SANTORUM:
Santorum’s war on teleprompters - “See, I always believed that when you run for president of the United States, it should be illegal to read off a teleprompter. Because all you’re doing is reading someone else’s words to people. You’re voting for someone who is going to be the leader of our government. It’s important for you to understand who that person is in their own words, see them, look them in the eye…hear what’s (in their) heart. You’re choosing a leader. A leader isn’t just about what’s written on a piece of paper.” || [MB]: Video of Rick Santorum using a teleprompter last month. [TP]: Santorum’s campaign, like those of almost every other politician, employs speechwriters to help draft his public remarks. So he is likely often “reading someone else’s words.”
Santorum co-chair: Romney should ‘renounce his racist Mormon religion’ - At a press conference on Monday, Rev. O’Neal Dozier, who is an honorary chairman of Santorum’s Florida campaign, said that he was speaking out to “foster and maintain good race relations here in America.” “The Mormon religion is prejudiced against blacks, Jews and native Americans,” Dozier insisted, adding that Romney’s nomination would widen the racial divide because “the Republican Party would be viewed as a racist political party.” “Romney’s nomination would cause the erroneous view that has long existed in the minds of black people that the Republican Party is prejudiced to become a reality. Why? Because Romney will become the face and the leader of the Republican Party.”
Santorum: Endangered Species Act puts ‘critters above people’ - “I know that from personal experience in Pennsylvania, and look at the Central Valley of California. There are so many places that we put critters above people. It’s a radical ideology that says we are here to serve the Earth instead of man having dominion over the Earth to serve him and to be a good steward of that Earth. …I accept the fact that the president’s a Christian. I just said when you have world view that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth like things that are not scientifically proven like the politicization of the whole global warming debate.”4) F&%KING RUSH LIMBAUGH:
What hath Rush wrought? - Limbaugh has become so toxic, major advertisers want to avoid him and other shock jocks who might be as offensive as he is. As John Avlon noted over the weekend, “Rush Limbaugh made the right-wing talk-radio industry, and he just might break it.” [T]he irony is that the same market forces that right-wing talk-radio hosts champion are helping to seal their fate. Advertisers are abandoning the shows because they no longer want to be associated with the hyperpartisan — and occasionally hateful — rhetoric. They are finally drawing a line because consumers are starting to take a stand. [...] When big money starts shifting, it is a sign of a deeper tide that is difficult to undo, even if you are an industry icon like Rush Limbaugh. It is a sign that the times are changing. The free market at work.
Corporate America Turns Its Back On Rush Limbaugh - Watching advertisers flee Limbaugh at an alarming rate last week, Beck must have felt a sense of déjà vu regarding the cavalcade of television sponsors who abandoned him after he insulted the president as a “racist.” (Not to mention a socialist -Marxist -Nazi.) It was an advertising exodus that eventually cost Beck his job at Fox News. Like Beck before him, Limbaugh has announced the mass migration is no big deal. Yet like Beck before him, Limbaugh last week learned the overdue lesson that there are real-world consequences for trafficking in hate speech. The talk titan learned there are free-market penalties, such as when companies like Carbonite and AOL walked away from their existing ad commitment to Limbaugh’s show. [...] Imagine how painful the sting must feel for Limbaugh who practically worships at the alter of big business, to know corporate America, via the beloved free marketplace, has spoken so loudly and so clearly about Limbaugh’s creepy, misogynistic taunts of Sandra Fluke.5) WOMEN:
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N.C. County Kills Family-Planning Funds - The commissioners didn’t think it was right to use taxpayer money to pay for women who want to have sex for non-procreative purposes. From the Star-News: Chairman Ted Davis said he thought it was a sad day when “taxpayers are asked to pay money for contraceptives” for women having sex without planning responsibly. “If these young women are being responsible and didn’t have the sex to begin with, we wouldn’t have this problem to begin with,” Davis said. The New Hanover County decision comes amid a growing debate about contraception and family planning in North Carolina and nationally. Last year, North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature became one of a handful to try and ban state funding for Planned Parenthood.
Democrats leading GOP by 25 points among women - A Washington Post survey released Monday found that Democrats are perceived as caring more about issues that are important to women by 25 points, 55 percent to 30 percent. The poll also showed that a large majority of all voters support the idea that businesses should be required to cover the “full cost” of contraception for female employees. Among all voters, 61 percent supported a mandate for birth control coverage, while 35 percent did not. Of those who said contraception should be included in insurance coverage at no cost, 79 percent agreed that religious institutions should not be exempted from the mandate. Overall, 3 percent more voters sided with Obama administration’s policy requiring religious institutions to include birth control in their insurance plans than those who did not. As MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted, 53 percent of voters were women in 2008.6) MISC:
South Korean and Russian scientists join to clone woolly mammoth - The South Korean foundation said it would transfer technology to the Russian university, which has already been involved in joint research with Japanese scientists to bring a mammoth back to life. “The first and hardest mission is to restore mammoth cells,” another Sooam researcher, Hwang In-Sung, told AFP. His colleagues would join Russian scientists in trying to find well-preserved tissue with an undamaged gene. By replacing the nuclei of egg cells from an elephant with those taken from the mammoth’s somatic cells, embryos with mammoth DNA could be produced and planted into elephant wombs for delivery, he said. Sooam will use an Indian elephant for its somatic cell nucleus transfer. The somatic cells are body cells, such as those of internal organs, skin, bones and blood. “This will be a really tough job, but we believe it is possible because our institute is good at cloning animals,” Hwang In-Sung said.
CDC Seasonal Flu update - Nine states reported widespread influenza activity (an increase from six states last week). Regional influenza activity was reported by 21 states (an increase from 18 states last week). Twelve states reported local influenza activity (a decrease from 13 states last week). Eight states (a decrease from 12 states last week), the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico reported sporadic influenza activity. The U.S. Virgin Islands reported no influenza activity.1) “Things are strange… things are happening to me.” — Mitt Romney, campaigning in southern states. Look, at least the President can visit ANY state in the nation, including southern states, without appearing like he’s desperately trying to entertain strange and terrifying lifeforms from a planet outside our solar system that’s known for sudden, violent attack. And cockroaches in an agricultural building… is that where Romney thinks all the cockroaches are typically kept, stabled for the night, if you will? Or what? Señor Romney thinks agricultural buildings = cucarachas?
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2) Rush Limbaugh Scandal Proves Contagious for Talk-Radio Advertisers - Rush Limbaugh made the right-wing talk-radio industry, and he just might break it. Because now the fallout from the “slut” slurs against Sandra Fluke is extending to the entire political shock-jock genre. Premiere Networks, which distributes Limbaugh as well as a host of other right-wing talkers, sent an email out to its affiliates early Friday listing 98 large corporations that have requested their ads appear only on “programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity).” This is big. According to the radio-industry website Radio-Info.com, which first posted excerpts of the Premiere memo, among the 98 companies that have decided to no longer sponsor these programs are “carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm), and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway).” Together, these talk-radio advertising staples represent millions of dollars in revenue.
3) Republican primary voters older, over 90% white - The National Journal ran the numbers: So far, according to exit polls posted on CNN.com, whites have cast at least 90 percent of the votes in every Republican primary except Florida (83 percent) and Arizona (89 percent). In every other state except Michigan (92 percent) and Nevada (90 percent) whites have comprised at least 94 percent of the GOP vote this year. That includes Georgia (94), Virginia (94), Ohio (96), Oklahoma (96), Tennessee (97), South Carolina (98), Massachusetts (98), Iowa (99), New Hampshire (99), and Vermont (99). By comparison in the 2008 general election, whites cast only 74 percent of the total vote. [...] The GOP has been trying to keep their nearly-all-white base riled up with race baiting statements (see: Newt versus Juan Williams; Santorum and “blah” people; the entire birther conspiracy theory; the current attempts at generating outrage over Barack Obama once “hugging” some black guy). It may inspire their current members, sure, but there’s clearly no long-term future there. Eventually that base is going to start, well, dying.
4) Fox Doubles Down On Fluke Conspiracy Theories - On Thursday, Bill O’Reilly speculated that Sandra Fluke — the Georgetown law student who testified about the need for insurance coverage for contraception and was then subjected to unrelenting misogynistic attacks by Rush Limbaugh — was a White House plant. O’Reilly based his suggestion on the fact that Fluke is now being represented by former White House communications director Anita Dunn’s PR agency. As we’ve noted, that conspiracy theory imploded when it became clear that Dunn’s PR firm started representing Fluke pro bono on Monday and that prior to that Fluke was fielding media requests herself. Nevertheless, O’Reilly and fellow Fox News host Eric Bolling were still trying to push Fluke conspiracy theories tonight.
5) Most of Obama’s “Controversial” Birth Control Rule Was Law During Bush Years - In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn’t provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees. Employers that don’t offer prescription coverage or don’t offer insurance at all are exempt, because they treat men and women equally—but under the EEOC’s interpretation of the law, you can’t offer other preventative care coverage without offering birth control coverage, too. “It was, we thought at the time, a fairly straightforward application of Title VII principles,” a top former EEOC official who was involved in the decision told Mother Jones. “All of these plans covered Viagra immediately, without thinking, and they were still declining to cover prescription contraceptives. It’s a little bit jaw-dropping to see what is going on now…There was some press at the time but we issued guidances that were far, far more controversial.” [image: sandandglass]
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6) It Is a War on Women, and It Is Not Stopping - Anyway, the ladies from Becket want us all to know that this isn’t about contraception. It’s about religious liberty, which is now threatened because secular insurance companies have to provide birth control free as part of a general health-care package even to those people who work in Catholic 
institutions. [...] The point of this is to show that, as heartening as the polls on these issues might be to Democrats, and especially to the Democrat in the White House, the people who seek to truncate brutally the right of women to control their bodies and, specifically, their health care, are organized, well-financed, and they simply do not stop. There is nothing on the other side of the argument that compares to the network of organizations that apparently have decided that this is their last best chance to roll those particular rights back, and that are prepared to fight that battle on every front possible. This is not encouraging. [images: sandandglass]
1) F**king Alaska! Can we throw this state out of the Union already? – An Alaskan man has filed a lawsuit to prohibit President Obama from appearing on the November ballot not on the grounds that he was born in Kenya, but on the basis that his skin-color alone is enough to bar him from being a citizen. A man from Juneau, Alaska, has filed suit with the state’s Division of Elections to bar President Obama from appearing on that state’s ballot on the basis that the President is a “Mulatto”, and “the race of ‘Negro’ or ‘Mulatto’ had no standing to be citizens of the United States under the United States Constitution.”
2) What Are the Gobshites Saying These Days? - Santorum decided to flagellat… er… explain himself to Glenn Beck, and to Beck’s audience of angry shut-ins… The two public intellectuals got into a discussion of religion, and Santorum said: ”I saw one poll that said 62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it… I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely… The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country.” …The putative Republican frontrunner is a fking religious loon. This, I believe, should be something of an issue in the campaign.
3) Rick Santorum: Americans With ‘Special Needs’ Won’t Survive Under Obama’s Health Reform - But the Affordable Care Act actually prevents insurance carriers from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions (and disabilities), prohibits health plans from putting a lifetime dollar limit on benefits and specifically invests in programs for people with disabilities. For instance, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has “announced $2.25 billion to extend the existing Money Follows the Person Rebalancing Demonstration Program, which is designed to facilitate people with disabilities staying in their communities instead of being placed in institutional settings” and has provided additional funding for aging and disability resource centers and other programs for sicker Americans. This why groups like the American Association of People with Disabilities, National Organization For Rare Disorders, and The Arc of the United States not only support the law, but have filed an amicus brief in its defense.
4) Romney Fails His Own ‘Moral Responsibility’ Test, Can’t Balance His Campaign’s Budget - A series of ads lift excerpts from a speech Romney gave in November at an event in New Hampshire in which he says “we have a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in,” and “it is a moral responsibility to believe in fiscal responsibility. We do and I do.” That raises serious questions about Romney’s morality then, since in January his campaign spent nearly three times more than it brought in during the month. Financial reports filed with the Federal Election Commission shows that the Romney camp raised about $6.5 million in January, but spent almost $19 million during the same period.
5) Can you imagine how fucked Obama would have been if he’d said Michelle drove a couple of Cadillacs? - For his embarrassing partial quote of the day, Mitt Romney ended a speech in Detroit with an apparent attempt to reach out to the car-making community there, saying, “I actually love this state. This feels good being back in Michigan … I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles. I drove a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck. Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually.” Reporters have immediately jumped on the latter half of the comment as another example of Romney appearing “tone deaf” when making oblique references to his wealth among voters. (Think “I like being able to fire people” or “corporations are people, my friend.”) “Politically, I don’t there’s anything wrong with mentioning your wife drives a Cadillac. But it’s a little riskier if you mention she drives ‘a couple,’” writes The Hill’s Christian Heinze. “For the love of Pete,” tweets Politico’s Ben White. “… It would be better for that campaign if he didn’t speak.” “PROBLEM” adds Politico’s Dylan Byers. But let’s all take a step back. It could have been worse! Something like, “Ann used to drive two Cadillacs but that was years before we hired her a private driver.”
6) Higher gas prices: The folly of blaming Obama for higher gas prices - The real problem is not that gas gets expensive sometimes, but that the United States, with its extremely high levels of per capita oil consumption, is much more vulnerable to supply disruptions than are rich countries in Asia and Europe. A larger share of Americans drive on a daily basis, and they drive heavier cars longer distances. Not coincidentally, gasoline is cheaper here thanks to lower taxes. But while American politicians like to pay lip service to the idea of tax reform that encourages work and investment, they refuse for political reasons to levy higher fees on environmentally and economically destructive gasoline in exchange for lower taxes on socially beneficial labor and savings. Until that happens we’re doomed to endless repetition of the pointless gas-price blame game every time global conditions push prices up.
7) Gov. Gregoire: Obama Is The ‘Inspiration’ Behind Washington’s Same-Sex Marriage Bill - Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) praised President Obama’s record on gay rights following a meeting between the President and Democratic Governors, thanking him “for his leadership on GLBT issues.” Gregoire, whose state recently passed a same-sex marriage bill, said that it was through his efforts they were able to achieve what they did, adding, “He’s been the inspiration that allowed the state of Washington recognize that we need to have equality.” President Obama says he is still “evolving” in his support for marriage equality.
“I think at least they’re doing it the right way, which is going through voters, giving them a chance to vote and not having a handful of judges arbitrarily impose their will,” Gingrich said when asked about the votes in Washington state and Maryland. “I don’t agree with it. I would vote no if it were on a referendum where I was, but at least they’re doing it the right way.” — Newt Gingrich on Washington state enacting same-sex marriage
8) Kansas may raise taxes on the poor to fund cuts for the rich - In the version of the bill approved by a House committee this week, half a million of the state’s poorest residents who earn less than $25,000 will wind up paying an average of $72 more per year, while the 21,000 Kansans who make over $250.000 will get an average tax cut of $1500. A source in the state legislature told the Associated Press that the legislation will also reduce state revenues by more than $850 million oer the next five years. Kansas Democrats are predictably outraged. “It’s been Robin Hood in reverse,” Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley complained last month. “What we are doing is stealing from the poor to give to the rich.” It could be worse. the plan originally proposed by Governor Brownback would have given the wealthiest Kansans a $5200 tax cut, while forcing the lowest-income residents to pay $156 more.
9) Why Medicaid Is Hard To Cut - The biggest share of the pie, or the greatest percentage of Medicaid money, is spent on the blind and disabled. It’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to cut care from that group. The next largest share of Medicaid goes to the elderly. Yes, even after they get Medicare, the very poor among those age 65 or older also get Medicaid. We call them dual-eligibles. Does anyone think that we’re going to cut from seniors after the 2010 elections? Unlikely. Should we cut from kids in foster care? Or perhaps “BCCA Women”, or women who are getting breast or cervical cancer assistance. No?
God must be sick of these guys — and their shit, and probably has a big surprise in store for each of them (including you, NASCAR fans):
image: mabelalexa
