Tag Archives: sandra fluke

Democratic National Convention to highlight GOP War on Women

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Buzzfeed reports that “Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria will address the Democratic National Convention next month, according to a release… [she] has taken on a significant fundraising role for Obama, and has worked on Hispanic and women’s outreach for the campaign.”

Particularly in light of Rep. Todd Akin’s comments on rape this week, the Obama campaign has readied another push on women’s rights and women’s health, and is planning on using the convention to highlight the “War on Women.”

Among the other names announced on the all-female list announced today:

-Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin
-Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth
-Sandra Fluke, Georgetown University Student
-Denise Juneau, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Montana
-Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America
-Caroline Kennedy
-Lilly Ledbetter
-U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, together with the women of the U.S. Senate
-Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Action Fund

 
via: orbitingasupernova


via: christopherstreet


via: nickoftime

Arbitron: Rush Limbaugh’s ratings have fallen 27% to 40% in key markets

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The Limbaugh Ship of Fail is slowly sinking.

Rush Limbaugh’s ratings have dropped sharply in several major markets following the firestorm over his comments about Sandra Fluke, Politico reports. [...] Politico’s Dylan Byers got an early look at the latest ratings report from Arbitron:

The conservative radio host’s ratings fell 27 percent in the key 25-54 demo in New York City, 31 percent in Houston-Galveston, 40 percent in Seattle-Tacoma, and 35 percent in Jacksonville, according to a selection of the March 29-April 25 Arbitron ratings provided by an industry source.

Sources told Byers that it was possible that a bubble has burst: Limbaugh saw a spike in listeners due to the controversy, and now those people have stopped tuning in. Limbaugh’s ratings were also up in other markets, such as San Francisco.

Rush Limbaugh Ratings Drop In Several Big Markets

Morning Bunker Report: Saturday 4.28.2012

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——————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

 
Source: sandandglass

MITT THE PROBLEM SOLVER! ROMNEY TELLS STUDENTS to just borrow money from their parents. Mitt Romney is the most tone-deaf motherfucker to ever run for president. HANDS DOWN. This afternoon at an event in Ohio—which students apparently were forced to attend, if the gentleman falling asleep in the front row is any indication—Mitt Romney yammered on about class warfare, and how President Obama is always attacking success, and why don’t kids today have the bootstrapitude it takes to up and start a multimillion dollar sandwich chain like Romney’s good friend Jimmy John did by borrowing $20K from the parental units. – ABL: Balloon Juice | read more: ABL: Raw Story

  • OBVIOUSLY, THE ADVICE FITS RIGHT INTO THE CHARACTERIZATION that Romney is ‘out of touch’ with regular people. Most students don’t have parents with $20,000 in disposable capital sitting around to give to their kids to start a business. — Think Progress
  • REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE MITT ROMNEY campaigned [yesterday] at Otterbein College — a school that benefited from the passage of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the stimulus. Otterbein received a grant worth more than $80,000 for a federal work-study program in July 2009. Ignoring that fact, though, Romney proceeded to attack the stimulus in his speech to students. – Romney Attacks Stimulus At College That Took Stimulus Funds

YESTERDAY RUSH LIMBAUGH said Hillary Clinton is just a secretary who needs to wear Spanx. [He] said that Clinton “has reached a pinnacle and all she is is a secretary,” adding that the left has “the strangest definition of success.” Limbaugh then said he was being prodded to talk about Clinton’s need to wear “Spanx,” but suggested she had a greater need for “Spankles.” – Rush Limbaugh On Hillary Clinton: ‘All She Is Is A Secretary’ Who Needs To Wear Spanx || Your “Imaginary” GOP War on Women, people!


Because feminists are dykes. GET IT? — Fox News Douchebag Of The Day

BUZZFEED POLITICS IS TRYING SO HARD to campaign for Romney:

MEDIA DARLING SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ) is blasting Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for spending too much time in front of the television cameras. [...] “I have never seen Sen. Schumer address any issue unless it was political in the United States Senate,” McCain told Van Susteren. “Bob Dole once said, the most dangerous place to be in Washington D.C. is between Sen. Schumer and a television camera.” “That holds true today,” he added. But very few, if any, senators in recent years have been given more airtime than McCain himself. [...] Between his loss in the November 2008 presidential election and January 2010, McCain had appeared on Sunday morning talk shows at least 19 times. By March 2012, he had broken former Sen. Bob Dole’s (R-KS) record by appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press 64 times. – Crooks & Liars

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS————————————————————

PRESIDENT OBAMA ON FRIDAY SIGNED an executive order that will help protect veterans from the deceptive practices of some for-profit colleges that seek to take advantage of them. The news was greeted with praise from veterans groups, who have “long felt that student veterans need to have the tools to succeed when it comes to their education.” The American Legion called it “an important victory on behalf of our young servicemembers and veterans who, in seeking to better themselves educationally, have been wrongly and unconscionably victimized by some institutions who see America’s finest as nothing more than a vulnerable market.” — MMFA

NEW WEB VIDEO FROM OBAMA CAMPAIGN — ROMNEY’S PRIORITIES: Mitt wouldn’t have killed Osama bin Laden (but remember, he would have let GM go bankrupt) — A new web video from the Obama campaign, featuring former President Bill Clinton, suggests Mitt Romney wouldn’t have made the decision to go after Osama bin Laden almost one  year ago today — TPM

  • NATURALLY THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN is in hysterics.  Chait comments: In 2004, Democrats were furious that Bush used the 9/11 attacks as a political asset. Now, Republicans are indignant that Obama is running on having killed Osama bin Laden. (Of course, the difference is that 9/11 was at best something Bush had no responsibility for and at worst a colossal blunder, while killing bin Laden is an actual accomplishment.)
  • GOOD OLD ‘SOUR GRAPES’ JOHN MCCAIN who lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama, harshly criticized him for politicizing the death of Osama bin Laden, which he called the “height of hypocrisy.” – John McCain: Obama Playing Politics With Anniversary Of Bin Laden’s Death
  • BUT REMEMBER THE 2008 CAMPAIGN AND JOHN MCCAIN’S ‘SUPER SECRET PLAN’ to capture bin Laden? John McCain says in almost every stump speech that he knows how to capture Osama bin Laden and that he’d follow the al Qaeda leader to the “Gates of Hell.” So Washington Wire was wondering, what does McCain know that President Bush and the Pentagon don’t about how to sweep up America’s most elusive enemy. If there are “certain policies and procedures” that could lead to OBL’s detention, and a president could implement those policies and procedures now, why wouldn’t McCain stop by the Oval Office for a chat with Bush about how best to proceed? By McCain’s own reasoning, it sounds like he’d rather let bin Laden remain free for another year, until McCain and his “own ideas” can get to work. – McCain’s ‘secret plan’ to get bin Laden

Mitt Romney: poised to be the GOP’s top shithead

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Mitt Romney poised for Tuesday sweep – If Mitt Romney is able to win with these kinds of margins—big double-digits in Romney-friendly states, high single-digits to low double-digits in states where Rick Santorum originally had a chance—there’s no question that he’ll win enough delegates to hit the magic number while primaries are still ongoing. So I guess Republicans have the shortest memory in the world. After spending three years yelling about President Obama, health care reform, and high taxes … they are about to nominate the guy who invented Obamacare and who raised taxes while governor of Massachusetts. Of course, he denies all that, and apparently Republicans are willing to believe him. But things are going to get interesting when Romney tries to move into Etch-A-Sketch mode, trying to erase the things he said during the Republican primary in order to appeal to swing voters. And assuming tomorrow goes as PPP’s polling suggest it will, that day is coming soon.

 Wisconsin, Where the Romney Pushback Begins – So, suddenly, with women running away from the Republican party and its putative nominee as though he’s gone radioactive, we get a story that tells us that the White House “fears” the power of “rock star” Ann Romney, the woman with several Cadillacs? As near as I can tell from that Politico story, the main sources of Ann Romney’s “power” are that she’s Mitt’s only first wife, and that he’s a little bit less of an animatronic foof when she’s around. She’s his “link” to “the base” simply because they’ve stayed married to each other. [...] The work of humanizing the Romneybot — recreating him as a “moderate,” so that we can actually have the horse-race that people want so badly come the fall — is going to continue and accelerate. His campaign has been stunningly adequate throughout, just about up to the task of spending a quintillion quatloos to crush a field of lightweights and rodeo clowns. He’s outspending Santorum 55-to-one in Wisconsin and has built up a virtual monopoly on television advertising, and his lead is still only in single digits. And he’s being stunningly adequate in a state that is in a merry chaos of superheated politics. For the first time since Fighting Bob LaFollette was in there swinging, Wisconsin is the red-hot core of American politics.

Animatronic foof!! That’s exactly why I read Charles P. Pierce, who in my mind is a national treasure. #WIN

Here are some things the Romneybot has done / said recently, all of which TeamRomney will now attempt to either “soften” for moderate voters (the majority of folks who aren’t likely to think Jesus would have voted for more tax cuts for the wealthy), or will just straight up amend, change, or lie about in the future. We need to keep score:

Mitt Romney’s top 5 assaults to women’s health

1. He’s going to ‘get rid of’ Planned Parenthood.

2. Romney supports the Blunt Ammendment which would allow employers to deny health insurance coverage on the basis of moral objections.

3. Romney is fighting a covert battle against contraception, even if he is doing his best not to call it that.

4. Romney failed to condemn Rush Limbaugh’s characterization of Sandra Fluke as a “slut.”

5. Romney supports restricting access to abortions. He has called Roe v. Wade “one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history.”

More details at Think Progress

Side note:


via: lycanpedia

One of NOM’s Top Secret Donors Revealed: Mitt Romney – We often talk about how hard NOM works to hide their donors – even if it means circumventing the law – but now, we’ve learned the identity of one of their high-profile financial supporters: Mitt Romney. Financial documents obtained by HRC reveal that Mitt Romney donated $10,000 to the National Organization for Marriage in 2008 – essentially funding NOM’s strategy of using racial division and unfounded scare tactics to attack LGBT equality, at the same time that NOM was fighting for Prop 8 in California. via: sarahlee310

Tax Cuts in GOP Budget Would Give Millionaires $265,000 on Top of Bush Tax Cuts; Would Cut Top Rate to Lowest Level Since Hoover Administration – “I’m very supportive of the Ryan budget plan. It’s a bold and exciting effort on [Ryan’s] part and on the part of the Republicans.”— Mitt Romney [source]

Ad War Update – Romney’s online ad strategy is to tell people what they want to hear, literally: In the past campaign speeches often tried to include one line or two to satisfy each type of voter. But increasingly campaigns are figuring out exactly what people like you would need to hear to vote for them, and then giving exactly that message to people exactly like you. Another group of people will hear another message directed explicitly at their concerns.

Mitt Romney Keeps Lying – Mitt Romney is not only lying more often as the primary draws to close, he’s also telling bigger lies. “We know that under Barack Obama, 800,000 jobs have been lost. We know that under Barack Obama, 2.3 million homes have been foreclosed upon. We know that under this president, chronic unemployment is the worst it’s been in American history.” No, it is not the worst it’s been in American history. I expect the general election will be filled with one lie after another, because there is no credible way for Romney and the Republicans to attack the president without lying…

Romney (and the rest of the GOP) can’t ever make a point without acting like they’re in a junior high lunch room:  “Our president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do,” Romney told a conservative crowd. Obama rebuffs Romney on ‘exceptional’ America – “It’s still primary season for the Republican Party,” [Obama] said, but then took aim at Romney’s central argument. “It’s worth noting that I first arrived on the national stage with a speech at the Democratic Convention that was entirely about American exceptionalism and that my entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism. But, you know, I will cut folks some slack for now because they’re still trying to get their nomination.”

Wednesday morning’s 4 marginally interesting things

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1) ROMNEY THE RICH RUSSIAN ADVERSARY

Mitt Romney’s 4-car fantasy home — At Mitt Romney’s proposed California beach house, the cars will have their own separate elevator. There’s also a planned outdoor shower and a 3,600-square foot basement — a room with more floor space than the existing home’s entire living quarters. A project this ambitious comes with another feature you don’t always find with the typical fixer-upper: its own lobbyist, hired by Romney to push the plan through the approval process. […] But it may not help Romney — whose wealth has caused him trouble connecting with average folks — to be seen building a split-level, four-vehicle garage that comes with a “car lift” to transport automobiles between floors, according to 2008 schematic plans for the renovation obtained by POLITICO that are on file with the city of San Diego.

  • Car Elevators In Action — Mitt Romney is getting one, and they’re kind of awesome.
  • Mitt Romney: Silly voters, elevators are for cars, not people! — His appreciation of elevators in his capacity as a private citizen didn’t show up, however, when he was Governor of Massachusetts. In particular, Romney — like many Republicans — was hostile to requirements for elevators imposed by the Americans Disabilities Act (ADA). [...] On June 26, 2006 Romney vetoed an improvement project with the price tag of $40,000 with his line item veto. The project would have allocated the money to Woburn Development Authority for improvements to an elevator to meet the standards set in the ADA. The whole state of Massachusetts couldn’t come up with $40,000 to refurbish an elevator so that people with disabilities could use it. By contrast, when Mitt Romney wanted to convince the city of La Jolla, California that his beachfront mansion needed its own private car elevator, he spent $21,000 just on the lobbyist he hired to help make that happen.
  • Mitt Romney’s Many Homes – Republican Presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney drew more attention today for ill-timed plans to triple the size of his La Jolla, Calif. home and add a car elevator. It’s not his only property, however, and here’s a look at his other lodging.

Not Ready to Lead — Mitt Romney thinks the president doesn’t need to be an expert on foreign policy; he’ll just call his lawyers to figure out what to do.


…

LOL ROMNEY: Making Friends All Over the Place — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev tweaked Mitt Romney for his characterization of Russia as the “No. 1 geopolitical foe” of the United States, saying the comments did not reflect the current relationship between the two countries. “It is very reminiscent of Hollywood and also of a certain phase in Russian-U.S. relations,” Medvedev said at the end of the nuclear security summit in South Korea Tuesday. […] Medvedev urged Romney to take the current climate into account if he hopes to win the presidential election. “My first advice is to listen to reason when they formulate their positions. Reason never harmed a presidential candidate,” Medvedev said. “My other advice is to check their watches from time to time: it is 2012, not the mid-1970s.”

2) ‘COLOSSAL DICK’ SANTORUM  

Santorum loses lead at home to Romney — Santorum, who represented the state in Congress for 16 years until he was defeated in a Senate election in 2006, saw his lead over Romney evaporate from 29 points to 2 points in the past month, according to the Franklin and Marshall College poll conducted from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania’s primary election takes place on April 24, along with liberal northeastern states like New York and Connecticut which Romney is favored to win. If Santorum loses or scrapes by with a narrow win in Pennsylvania, he will come under pressure from senior Republicans to pull out of the race.

Santorum, Gingrich open to VP slot — Rick Santorum sat down with radical TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, which asked the former senator if he would consider an invitation to join Mitt Romney’s Republican ticket. “Of course,” Santorum said… Also yesterday, Newt Gingrich was asked on Fox News about a possible V.P. nomination. Though the former Speaker said an invitation is unlikely, he added, “I wouldn’t say no.” At least on the surface, Santorum and Gingrich scoff at the very idea of ending their presidential bids, and in public, continue to tell voters that they remain viable candidates. But when they both sit down for televised interviews, and both signal a willingness to accept roles on the ticket, Santorum and Gingrich are signaling a level of resignation and defeat neither has made up until now. As one GOP strategist told TPM, “Rick Santorum saying he would be open to being Romney’s vice president undermines the logic of his delegate campaign. To win his delegate race, he has to demonize Romney. He has now cut that path off.”

3) THE OTHER TWO

Gingrich, Strapped for Cash, Lays Off Third of Staff — Gingrich, insists that he is still a viable candidate despite a third-place rank in the delegate count. He has hinged his entire strategy on hoping Mitt Romney is incapable of securing the 1,144 delegates needed to become the nominee, resulting in a contested GOP convention this summer. Earlier Tuesday in Annapolis, Md., Gingrich told reporters “the money is very tight obviously” and suggested his communications staff would soon announce a series of layoffs. Gingrich significantly cut back the number of scheduled campaign events he holds. Currently on his schedule, he only has one event a day for the next three days.

We call this one “Ron Paul with Sad Meat.”More where that came from.Where is Ron Paul? — Two things Ron Paul isn’t doing: He’s not winning — he has yet to place first in a primary or a caucus, either this cycle or last. And he isn’t making a lot of appearances on the campaign trail — over the past week, he has held only three campaign events, while his rivals’ events have numbered in the dozens. Four things Paul is doing: He’s appearing on late-night TV; he’s having a town hall at the University of Maryland in College Park on Wednesday; he’s holding what his campaign describes as a “giant” rally on Thursday at the University of Wisconsin in Madison; and he’s airing TV ads criticizing his rivals over last week’s Etch a Sketch incident. [image: ccindecision]

4) TEABAGISTAN

Arizona lawmakers push to take over federal land – Another “sagebrush rebellion” is spreading through legislatures in Arizona and other Western states with a series of formal demands that the federal government hand over title to tens of millions of acres of forests, ranges and other public lands. […] Legal experts say the movement is based on a misreading of federal law and the U.S. Constitution and will almost certainly fail to survive court challenges…”In an era of apparent fiscal responsibility, why would the state seek billions of dollars of liability and management responsibility to assume ownership over the (25 million) acres or so of parks, forests and public lands in Arizona?” said Matt Skroch, executive director of the Arizona Wilderness Coalition. “It is ill-conceived, it is irresponsible and it makes absolutely no sense.”

‘Obamacare’ and the Right’s Own Private Universe — It is a small miracle of mass communication that complete and total bullshit is so quickly and easily converted into incontrovertible fact out of which can be created a world of public events completely real, but completely divorced from what the rest of us recognize as reality. Take poor Sandra Fluke. It is now an article of faith on the Right that she asked all of us to pay for “her” birth control. “Real women pay for their own birth control,” the crowd on the steps chanted today, and there were more than a couple of signs warning her not to expect “our” money to pay for her obviously overindulgent sexytime. Of course, Fluke did nothing of the sort. … Also, today, folks told me that Obamacare “finances abortions.” (It doesn’t.) I heard that it will mandate “euthanasia.” (It won’t.) Even the death panels got a workout again. We have half the country living in its own universe of belief, with its own history, its own politics, and its own physical laws. It’s like running elections against the anti-gravity party. It is not healthy for any of us. [image: phroyd]

Worst Persons in the World — The Daily Caller released a series of Trayvon Martin’s tweets yesterday, and once again the far-right is attacking and attempting to discredit an innocent child — and this time, the child happens to be dead. So classy, these people. Limbaugh and Beck attacked Malia Obama, Malkin stalked Graeme Frost and others — there are literally dozens of examples of the Fox News / AM radio crowd attacking children and noncombatants like Sandra Fluke. Why? Because they’re bullies and scavengers who can only prey upon easy targets.

Divide and Conquer For Jesus — Stay classy, homophobes: The leading opponents of same-sex marriage [National Organization for Marriage - NOM] planned to defeat campaigns for gay marriage by “fanning the hostility” between black voters from gay voters and by casting President Obama as a radical foe of marriage, according to confidential documents made public in a Maine court today.

Because nuns are women too

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The New Yorker: What’s Behind the Conservative Attack on Women?

The real attraction of the birth-control issue was that it could be used to bash Obamacare. It’s not proving to be a very effective weapon, however. When birth control is uncoupled from the religious-freedom argument—and when conservatives start talking in ugly ad-hominem language, like Limbaugh’s, or clueless anachronistic language, like Santorum’s—women, in particular, do not respond well.

Just after Limbaugh lashed out at Fluke, a Georgetown professor attended a reunion at a Catholic school in Queens. An elderly nun asked her, “Do you know that girl?” She added, “That awful man should be fired for what he said. How’s she holding up?”

 

Thursday morning’s 6 partially interesting things

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1) The GOP “presidential” candidates

  • Rick Santorum’s Southern Strategy: It’s Me, Stupid. - Well, there’s no question about it now. Rick Santorum — and have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick he is? — loves Jesus, and Jesus loves him, and so do all the people who love Jesus, and whom Jesus loves, down in the deep old South, where once they thought all Catholics had cloven hooves, horns on their heads, and Notre Dame sweaters covering their black and evil Papist hearts. Eight out of every 10 Mississippians who voted in that state’s primary on Tuesday were white evangelical, or born-again, Christians. [...] For all the post-game analysis of whether or not Santorum is now clearly “the real conservative” alternative to Romney…The basic argument is not about being “the real conservative” per se; it’s about being “the real conservative” as “conservative” is defined by a shoeless, Bible-banging, anti-intellectual, woman-hating, sex-maddened Republican base. And, for the moment, that is Santorum in full.
  • What Mitt SHOULD say: The Liberation of Willard Romney: A Game Plan, by Charles P. Pierce - “Okay, so let me tell you about myself. I’m not one of you. I’m moderately pro-life. I believe that gay people are human, too, and that, maybe, there ought to be a way for them to get married. I am not what I have been pretending to be all these months. I am nowhere near as stupid and retrograde as you have to pretend to be in this primary, okay? Right now, bitches, you’ve got a gender gap that looks like the Gates of Hercules because Santorum — and have Pierce and I told you recently what a colossal dick that guy is? — is a sheet-sniffing, diaphragm-hunting male nun. You’re losing two generations of Hispanic voters because you keep lining up behind immigration laws that seem to have been drawn up in Nuremberg. How’s that going to work out for you in 2016, or 2012? You really want to be the party of angry white people in lawn chairs? I am the Massachusetts moderate, bitches, and I’ve got the money to make it work. [...] It’s not my fault that longtime Republican solutions have been recast in the fetid reaches of The Base’s hive-mind as creeping socialism. It’s not my fault you turned ignorant poo-flinging into a national strategy. …You want the entire campaign to be about either Gingrich’s grandiose daydreams, or about Rick Santorum’s pursuit of the unauthorized use of the penis? One guy wants to be Caesar Augustus and the other one wants to be Pius IX. Is that really what you want? …So, yeah, I’m not going to be what the Bible-bangers want. You know why? Because there aren’t enough of them to win the election, and I’m sick of throwing good money after bad trying to win the hearts and the not-entirely-functioning minds of a bunch of people who see Jesus in their cereal bowls every morning. They can come along if they want to, but I’m not doing this born-again shuck-and-jive for their amusement any more. Why? “Because I’m Mitt Romney, bitches, and I’m all you got left.” Sources have told the blog it is unlikely that the Romney campaign will adopt this strategy.
  • Ann Coulter doesn’t consider Sarah Palin to be some “dream candidate” for a GOP brokered convention - Coulter said that might be a weakness in the Republican Party as a whole — that certain individuals become celebrities and are allowed to profit off that status and yet still interfere in GOP politics, which Democrats have been able to avoid.“And just a more corporate problem is I think our party and particularly our movement, the conservative movement, does have more of a problem with con men and charlatans than the Democratic Party,” she said. “I mean, the incentives seem to be set up to allow people — as long as you have a band of a few million fanatical followers, you can make money. The Democrats have managed to figure out how not to do that.”

2) The 21st Century Republican (tea)Party / American Theocracy

  • Is this what the wingnuts call the DOE’s liberal indoctrination? Iowa students shocked as high school assembly descends into homophobic rant - At first students at Dunkerton High School, Iowa, seemed grateful for this musical break from the norm – albeit with Christian-themed lyrics denouncing the evils of drugs, alcohol and violence. But things took a turn for the worse when the event veered into an impassioned and unfocused rant against homosexuality, abortion and sex before marriage. After his band Junkyard Prophet left the stage, drummer and preacher Bradlee Dean took the microphone, separating the crowd into boys, girls and teachers. Mr Dean is the president of the ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, which is listed by civil rights organisation the Southern Poverty Law Center as an active anti-gay hate group. [...] Students found themselves faced with graphic images of aborted foetuses, while girls were instructed to obey their husbands.Parent Jennifer Littlefield told the LaCrosse Tribune: ‘They told my daughter, the girls, that they were going to have mud on their wedding dresses if they weren’t virgins.’ || Just like Jesus!! 
  • Because nothing happens timely in the GOP-led House anymore: Senate passes highway bill, but rough road ahead - House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio has said he will take up the Senate bill “or something like it” this month, unless Republicans can come to terms on their own version. Rifts in GOP ranks have scuttled two other bills – one a five-year plan and the other an 18-month offering. [...]Should the bill pass as something similar to the current Senate version, it will have a number of improvements that will boost business, say many policy observers. The bill consolidates federal transportation programs from roughly 100 down to a third as many. It speeds up the delivery of projects by cutting back on regulations. It offers more flexibility to states to partner with the private sector on infrastructure projects like privately funded roads.

3) President Obama / Democrats

  • Notice how many Republican primaries have required photo IDs? Pennsylvania Democrats say ‘misguided’ voter ID law wastes $11 million - The law requires voters in the state to present a photo ID when they cast ballots in federal, state and local elections. The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center estimated the legislation would cost $11 million. In order to withstand legal challenges, the state must provide photo IDs for free, notify and educate voters about the new voting restrictions, hire more election staff, and purchase additional photo ID equipment. “Republicans should have spent their time working on legislation to create jobs instead of engaging in a political power grab,” Burn added. “Despite the Republicans’ attempts to silence voters, Democrats will ensure that every voter in Pennsylvania will have their voices heard in 2012 and beyond.” Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has said he would sign the bill into law.
  • Obama Wins The Crucial British Vote At State Dinner - Cameron, in town to promote the renewed “special relationship” between Britain and and the United States, expounded on Obama’s “strength,” “moral authority” and “wisdom,” and compared him to President Theodore Roosevelt. “He’s found a new voice for America with the Arab people,” Cameron said. The Prime Minister also spotlighted Obama’s leadership in the killing of Osama Bin Laden, a key component of the president’s reelection message. “The president says what he will do and he sticks to it. I’ll never forget that phone call on Libya when he told me exactly what role America would play in Libya and he delivered his side of the bargain to the letter… Let us all agree that the world is better off without bin Laden but the world is better off without Gadhafi too.”
  • Obama hails ‘indispensable’ U.S. alliance with Britain - But both men were forced to dwell on the terrible human costs of war, with sharp questions looming about the justification for more combat in Afghanistan and the possibility of new Middle East combat over Iran’s nuclear program. Obama and Cameron conspicuously used a joint press conference to try to convince weary American and British voters that recent sacrifices in Afghanistan had wrought “real progress” towards a future secure state. The US leader went on the record for the first time to back NATO’s planned transfer to a support role in 2013 before a full withdrawal the next year, though said there would be no sudden unscheduled drawdowns in coming months.

4) “Shock Blob” Rush Limbaugh

  • imageLimbaugh: Judging Miss America proves I’m not anti-woman - “I have affectionately referred to the NOW gang as the NAGs, the National Organization of Gals, for over 15 years,” Limbaugh said on Wednesday. “And the head NOW-gang babe was asked what she thinks about that yesterday on television after 15 years. Outraged! They are outraged!” “Now, how can I be anti-woman?” he asked. “I even judged the Miss America pageant.” After the pageant, former Miss America-turned-Fox News host Gretchen Carlson asked Limbaugh how he responded to critics who said that someone with his track record had no business judging women in a beauty pageant. “I’m a huge supporter of women!” the radio host declared. “What I’m not is a supporter of liberalism. Feminism is what I oppose and feminism has led women astray. I love women. I don’t know where this gets started.” “I love the women’s movement — especially when walking behind it.”
  • When Rush Limbaugh turned the tide - In this video unearthed by James Carter, the women of the 1994 Republican freshman class then met at the Heritage Foundation and made a special presentation of gratitude to another hero of theirs, Rush Limbaugh. Congresswoman Barbara Cubin of Wyoming told Limbaugh: “Talk radio, with you in the lead, is what turned the tide, Rush, and we know that. You were the voice that everyone else could follow.” The lawmakers promised there wasn’t a “feminazi amongst us.” They gave Limbaugh a placque reading “Rush was right” and a copy of Gingrich’s Contract with America. Accepting their applause, Limbaugh told them, “Thank you all very much. This my kind of ‘Year of the Woman.’”
  • Rush Limbaugh’s woes not ending any time soon - Rush Limbaugh’s problems have staying power. So says the traditional media—in this case, ABC News. Their evidence is Premiere Network’s decision to pull all of its barter ads, the ads they provide to affiliates in exchange for airing the program, for two weeks.Premiere is obviously hoping the scandal just blows over and they can get that revenue back. But with Limbaugh rolling out ever-more crackpot theories and complaints about how he was set up to spend three hours a day for three solid days calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute,” that might not happen. National advertisers maybe aren’t going to want to be associated with a vulgar misogynist who also happens to be a crackpot conspiracy theorist. There’s also the little problem of how much the non-ditto head population (i.e., the majority) hates him. The PPP poll for Daily Kos found that 58 percent of the populate has a negative view of him, and 70 percent find his remarks about Fluke inappropriate, and an earlier Harris poll found him America’s least favorite political pundit.

5) GOP’s War on Women

  • What’s wrong with the Republican Party? ONLY 3 In 10 Republicans Want Limbaugh Fired - Thirty percent of Republicans think that Rush Limbaugh should be off the air following his sexist attack on Sandra Fluke, according to a new Bloomberg poll. Just yesterday, ThinkProgress reported that only 29 percent of likely voters believe Limbaugh’s apology was sincere. According to today’s poll, “men are split over whether the radio host should be let go from his job — 49 percent say so, while 47 percent disagree. Fifty-six percent of women support the move compared with 39 percent who don’t.” Since Limbaugh’s tirade just two weeks ago, 140 companies pulled their ads from Limbaugh’s show.
  • imageDid Anyone In Conservative Media Actually Read Or Listen To Sandra Fluke’s Testimony? - Conservative media figures, led by Rush Limbaugh, have continually distorted and exaggerated the content of Sandra Fluke’s testimony before Democratic members of Congress. They have gone so far afield of Fluke’s actual testimony that it often appears as if they never actually watched or read it. Here are some of the conservative claims about Fluke’s testimony, along with what she actually said.
  • Romney vows end to Planned Parenthood funding -  As the former governor sees it, the way to improve the deficit is to cut taxes, increase military spending, and block access to contraception, family planning services, pap smears, cancer screenings, and tests for sexually-transmitted diseases. … It’s also worth noting that Republican support for Planned Parenthood was the norm for nearly a half-century. Barry Goldwater and George H.W. Bush championed the health organization; Reagan never balked at PP funding in the budget; and none of this was considered controversial in the slightest. There’s no clearer example of the GOP’s shift to the extreme than its newfound disgust for Planned Parenthood. But the point I keep coming back to is Romney himself having supported the health organization, including having attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. Overnight, the DNC put together this video, going on the offensive over the issue.

6) Misc

  • How Congress Helps Republicans, But Not Democrats, Weather Bad Economies (Charts) - Republicans like to portray Democrats as big spenders. But the truth is more complicated. Democratic Congresses were pliant under Reagan and the first Bush, and thus federal spending (particularly military spending under Reagan) grew dramatically. For Bush 41, this trend didn’t hold when he needed it and he lost his re-election bid amid a weak economy. Working with a Republican Congress, George W. Bush too presided over a major increase in federal spending. This, along with the large tax cuts he passed in 2001 and 2003, exploded federal deficits, but also likely helped him through the economic hard times at the beginning of his first term. Clinton and Obama, who both lost control of the federal purse strings to an intransigent opposing party halfway through their first terms, were comparatively hamstrung. Politically, this proved to be a much bigger problem for Obama than it was for Clinton — Obama, after all, inherited a historic financial and economic crisis. But Obama’s economy is finally picking up on its own, and just in time. This Congress isn’t about to give him a hand…
  • Poll: Americans Favor Diplomacy Over Israeli Attack On Iran - But only one in four Americans favor Israel launching a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, according to a new University of Maryland poll. Seven out of 10 respondents believe the U.S. and other world leaders should continue to pursue negotiations with Iran. President Obama called for continued diplomacy in a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday. Cameron agreed. Only one in five respondents believe a strike against Iran would delay its ability to develop a nuclear weapon for more than five years, according to the poll. And about half of Americans polled believe the conflict would go on for years.

  • George Clooney draws a crowd at the Senate - Clooney, a dedicated human rights advocate, was in Sudan last week to view the destruction caused by the Sudan military’s bombing in the border area. At the hearing, Clooney—sporting a salt-and-pepper beard— urged the committee to go after the regime’s bank accounts and his project to use satellites to track military movements and attacks and shine a spotlight on them. He’s being joined on the panel by veteran Africa expert John Prendergast of the Enough Project. A source said the line outside the hearing room could best be described as “orderly but enthusiastic.” || Note: look at the sheer happiness on the faces of the ladies behind him! haha.

Jon Stewart on comparing Limbaugh and Maher: tells Fox to Shut the F*%k Up (gifs / video)

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images: drunkonstevphen

images: cognitivedissonance

This is exactly what I said yesterday. Hazzah!

Watch:

Heh. “Shock Blob” Rush Limbaugh.

Tuesday morning’s 6 questionably interesting things

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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.
  • Real Time with Bill Maher correspondent, Alexandra Pelosi interviews Mississippi residents.
  • Why the former half-term governor matters - In a new video released by the Obama team, viewers are reminded of comments Palin made on the air last week. If you missed the clip, Palin’s scathing criticism of the president was blisteringly stupid, even for her, with the argument that the president is “bringing us back … to days before the Civil War.” Yes, Palin seriously expected Fox News viewers to believe the nation’s first African-American president wants to roll back the clock 150 years, to the days when slavery was legal. [...] I wouldn’t be too surprised if Republican leaders and the Romney campaign ask Palin to take a much lower profile in the coming months. Whether Palin honors the request is another matter. WATCH:

…
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.
  • Mitt Romney May Not Need Medicare, But Seniors Do

…

  • 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.”
  • “The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is,” says Rick Santorum.

4) F&%KING RUSH LIMBAUGH: 

  • exodusWhat 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.



  • BREAKING: Rush Limbaugh Syndicator Suspends National Ads For Two Weeks - Radio-Info.com reports that Premiere Networks, which syndicates the Rush Limbaugh show, told its affiliate radio stations that they are suspending national advertising for two weeks. Rush Limbaugh is normally provided to affiliates in exchange for running several minutes of national advertisements provided by Premiere each hour. These ads called “barter spots.” These spots are how Premiere makes its money off of Rush Limbaugh and other shows it syndicates. But without explanation, Premiere has supended these national advertisements for two weeks. Radio-Info.com calls the move “unusual.” The development suggests that Rush Limbaugh’s incessant sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke have caused severe damage to the show.

5) WOMEN:

…

  • 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.
  • The Winter That Wasn’t, Part II - This year’s non-winter means an early explosion in bug infestations such as ants, termites, and Lyme disease carrying ticks. But worse than that, it may have wreaked havoc upon the honeybees.
  • 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.

EXCLUSIVE: 141 Companies Drop Advertising From Rush Limbaugh

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Just, LOL. Radioactive Rush Limbaugh. FINALLY.

EXCLUSIVE: 141 Companies Drop Advertising From Rush Limbaugh

ThinkProgress has obtained an internal memo from Premiere Radio Networks listing 96 national companies that have “specifically asked” their advertisments not be played during the Rush Limbaugh Show.

[...] Previously, ThinkProgress has reported that 50 companies requested their advertising be pulled from the Rush Limbaugh show following his sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke. The publication of the memo adds an additional 91 companies to the list of companies that have dropped Limbaugh:

21st Century Insurance • Hotels.com • Rite Aid • Ace Hardware • Honda • Robitussin • Acura • IBM • Sam Adams • Advance Auto Parts • Icy Hot • Sam’s Club • Advil (All products) • Intuit/Small Business • Schiff – Digestive Advantage • Alacer/Emergen-C • Schiff – Mega Red • Allegra (all products) • Johnson & Johnson (All Brands) • Schiff – Move Free • Kohl’s • Schiff – Sustenex • Ally Bank • La Quinta • Scotts Miracle-Gro (all products) • American Express • Lifetime • Autozone • Little Caesars • Sony • Boston Beer • Lowe’s • State Farm • British Petroleum • Luxottica • Staples • Bullfrog Sunblock • Macy’s • Sterling/Kay Jared Jewelers • Caltrate • MasterCard • Subway • Centrum • McDonalds • Takeda Uloric • Chapstick • Midas • The Home Depot • Clorox (Pinesol/Homecare) • Napa Auto Parts • ThermaCare • Cortizone • National Realtor • Toyota • DeVry • NBC-TV • Discover Card • Office Depot • Twinings of London • Domino’s Pizza • Office Max • Tyson/Wright Brand Bacon • Exxon/Exxon Mobil • One Main Financial • Unisom • Farmers Insurance • United Healthcare • Ford • Orkin • U.S. Army • Outback • U. S. Postal Service • General Motors (All products -GM Certified Service • Chevy • Onstar • Cadillac • etc) • Preparation H • Visa • Gold Bond (all products • ProNutrients (all products) • Walgreens • Grainger • Progressive Insurance • Wal-Mart • Green Mountain Coffee • Prudential • Wells Fargo • Hallmark • Radio Shack • Wrigley • H&R Block • Rent-A-Center • Yahoo!

VIEW A COPY OF THE MEMO HERE…

Adios, el Rushbo!

UPDATE:

U.S. Army among 141 groups pulling ads from Limbaugh

via: sarahlee310 – Now get him off the Armed Forces Network…

Because conservatives seem to always need remedial education on the First Amendment…

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Deserving of its own post, directly from Oliver Willis (emphasis below, mine):

Remedial First Amendment For Conservatives (And Bill Maher)

Here, in full, is the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Our constitution explicitly says that you can say whatever you want to say without government interference. What it does not guarantee is any sort of platform to make that speech. The first amendment does not guarantee a right to a radio show, a tv show, a newspaper column, a website, or a stage show. It says that you can say things and the government has no right to squelch that speech.

[...] if people object to his speech and communicate those sentiments to his advertisers and they in turn choose to disassociate themselves from him — nobody’s rights are being infringed.

The market that conservatives claim to love so much, is in fact working.

Continue…

Sunday morning’s 6 disputably interesting things

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1) Good Call: In 2008, Biden Said Bin Laden Was Hiding In Pakistan - In the 2008 Vice Presidential debate between then Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, Biden said Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan. He was right.

…

2) Catholics intensify campaign against same sex marriage - LONDON — The Roman Catholic Church stepped up its campaign against civil gay marriage, with a letter from two senior archbishops being read out at services in 2,500 churches on Sunday. The letter from Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and Archbishop Peter Smith, the Archbishop of Southwark, said it was their “duty” to defend the institution of marriage. “Changing the legal definition of marriage would be a profoundly radical step. Its consequences should be taken seriously now,” Nichols and Smith said in the letter, which was being read out at parish churches in England and Wales. “We have a duty to married people today, and to those who come after us, to do all we can to ensure that the true meaning of marriage is not lost for future generations.”

3) Santorum Easily Wins Caucuses in Kansas - Mr. Santorum captured 51 percent of the vote, easily eclipsing his rivals Mitt Romney, who had 21 percent; Newt Gingrich with 14 percent; and Ron Paul with 13 percent. Mr. Santorum was projected by The Associated Press to win at least 32 of the 40 delegates in play, raising the stakes for the Alabama and Mississippi primaries on Tuesday, which polls showed to be wide open. “We’ve had a very, very good day,” Mr. Santorum said in Missouri, retracing the ups and downs of a campaign in which he said many had questioned why he persisted. [image: thatslayerchick]

  • Watching Willard Romney have to reinvent himself as a barbarian is going to be the best show in town - And, also, this is the casual slander that passes for political thought among the people with whom Romney cannot be nominated for president. In his appearance in Topeka, Santorum lashed out at Romney, saying that the former Massachusetts governor “can’t wait” for the primary season to be over so that he can “get back in his comfort zone.” He added, “We already have one president who doesn’t tell the truth to the American people. We don’t need another nominated by our party to do the same. Gov. Romney reinvents himself for whatever the political occasion calls for.”  It is now permissable in the Republican party to say anything you want about the incumbent president of the United States. I’m going to open comments for someone to prove to me that a Democratic candidate in, say, 2004 came that close to calling George W. Bush a liar. The general election campaign is going to be the most savage and truthless exercise that money can buy, and the money involved is going to be able to buy a lot. The GOP is one small step from having one of its politicians drop an N-bomb on TV.

4) Romney struggles with improved economy - The first is that Romney’s refusal to even acknowledge the new job numbers suggests he has a problem. Romney has already said, more than once, that he believes the economy has improved since President Obama took office, and whether the Republican candidate ignores reporters’ questions or not, the facts are hard to dispute. Second, Romney likes to throw around that claim about “he would keep unemployment below 8 percent,” but it’s just not true. Repeating a lie does not make it more accurate. And third, if we’re really going to have a conversation about who “has failed” at job creation, we should probably talk less about the guy who prevented an economic collapse, and more about the governor whose record on job creation was something of a fiasco — during Romney’s tenure, Massachusetts’ job creation was “one of the worst in the country,” ranking 47th out of 50 states in job growth. [image: liberalsarecool]

5) James Wolcott | Julianne Moore’s Sarah-dipity - The chief reason to see Game Change (HBO, Saturday March 10th) is that it’s fun. It has nothing new or profound to say about the runaway train of a presidential campaign, it doesn’t paint any rainy moments of a candidate’s somber reflection on the toll of his soul as the an aide prattles on the latest polls, it doesn’t peel any of the crab shell off of John McCain for a look under the psychological hood, or show us a side of Sarah Palin that will send us to the rewrite pages of history. It doesn’t drip oil from the ceiling like Ides of March, implicating everyone including the audience in collusion and corruption. It’s a slow-burn comedy of exasperation, finally blossoming into cursing frustration when Palin, the rock-star treatment from her rabid fans pumping her up into believing that she’s bigger than the campaign, wants to make her own concession speech the night of the losing election…

  • The relevant comments come from these two: Other aides who worked on the campaign – campaign manager Steven Schmidt and top aide Nicolle Wallace – have said the film is a generally accurate portrayal of Sen. John McCain’s selection of Palin, whom they allege was emotionally and intellectually not up for the job. Let’s be clear: Palin is absolutely right. The film doesn’t matter.
  • ‘Game Change’ and the realities of political decisions - What matters is that John McCain picked someone so totally and completely unfit for the position of vice president. That disastrous decision disqualifies McCain for the position of “senior wise man” that he so loves to play. But what this choice tells us, reinforced by his behavior during the September 2008 financial meltdown, is that McCain’s instincts are abysmal and his judgment is worse. Why anyone would continue to take McCain seriously from a political standpoint is unanswerable. He’s never going to live down this choice. And the reason he’s so dismissive of the movie and the book is for all the right reasons: the chatter may be all about Palin, but the implications are all about McCain. In fact, that’s actually what happened in 2008, in case anyone has forgotten.

Your average rightwing talk-radio fan.

6) 98 Major Advertisers Dump Rush Limbaugh, Other Right-Wing Hosts - This helps explain why, on Rush Limbaugh’s flagship station WABC, almost of the commercial breaks were filled with unpaid pubic service announcements. You can check out the list of the 50 advertisers who were known to have dropped Limbaugh before this report here. But it’s not just Limbaugh that these advertisers want to disassociate with, but other big names in right-wing radio too. As the Daily Beast’s John Avalon notes, this is unprecedented in the 20-plus years that Limbaugh and his imitators have been on the air and could spell real trouble for an industry that’s already suffering demographically. Women ages 24–55 are the prize advertising demographic, but Limbaugh and other conservative hosts have steadily alienated these listeners over the years, so the sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke were “a perfect storm.”

  • (VIDEO) SNL’s Rush Limbaugh and his “new, better” sponsors:
  • The Young Turks: A Challenge to Rush: Prove Your Ratings - So, Rush is in big trouble now as more and more advertisers peel off. He’s in a tail spin. Why else would you triple down on the “slut” comments from Wednesday to Friday and then issue an apology on Saturday? He has over-reached (in his offensive comments) and undelivered (in his ratings). That’s a lethal combo. But Rush can easily prove me wrong. So, I’m issuing a challenge to him – show us your ratings. He won’t do it because he’s embarrassed by them. He has never produced evidence of his ratings and he certainly won’t do it now. In fact, I’ll make a Mitt Romney like wager. I’ll give him $10,000 if he can show us his 20 million listeners. Rush’s audience is a myth. He is a paper tiger. Do some people listen to him? Of course. Is it anywhere near the hype? Not remotely. Talk radio is a dying business. I wouldn’t be surprised if his daily listeners didn’t even reach a million.

Love Bill Maher, but he’s completely wrong on Limbaugh

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From Bob Cesca:

Maher on Real Time last night:

“I don’t like it that people are made to disappear when they say something, or people try to make them disappear when they say something you don’t like. That’s America. Sometimes you’re made to feel uncomfortable, okay?”

He doesn’t get it and it pisses me off when otherwise smart people fail to get the goddamn picture. Condensed to the most concise explanation possible: Limbaugh influences the law. [...] Additionally, Limbaugh uses the public airwaves and we have a right to hold accountable anyone who borrows our property. 

Continue…

Rush Limbaugh isn’t “incidental” to any political conversation. For the rightwing, he’s usually developed that conversation. The GOP establishment, out of sheer laziness and inattention, has allowed this fat fuck, this drug-abuser, this chemically-enhanced sex tourist, to not only set the tone but outline the entire discussion for their political party (and their legislation), for their very own wingnut cable news show, Fox “News,” for their “Christian” evangelical leaders (the neo-Republican Jesus crowd), and for the entire talk-radio clown car that trails behind every day, farting smoke and leaking oil everywhere.

Limbaugh defines and then mainstreams the ugliest and most vile fantasies of that select group of men who have Cheeto dust and dried seminal fluid beneath their fingernails — and whose very loud opinions, for whatever reason, seem to matter so very much to those who run our country on the conservative side.

MAYBE there would be a chance at an actual discussion on issues and solutions FOR EVERYONE if the volume on Batshitcrazyville was turned down a bit. Limbaugh is like a greasy, bloated parasite that’s been dividing and spreading across the country, worming himself into the brains of angry, resentful, terrified white men — eating intelligence and common decency — since he first claimed to have 20 million listeners in 1993. You don’t have to wonder if you’re an asshole if you’re just one in 20 million, right?

Limbaugh speaks for exactly two groups of Americans: these white men in their pickup trucks (and so, to an extent, their desperately fanatical wives) and angry shut-ins. For political expediency, the Republican Party has always run with whatever Rush says — conversations, compromise, and solutions are laughed at and shouted down with Limbaugh-coded pejoratives (feminazis! Barack the Magic Negro!) and ignorant takeaway arguments (Sandra Fluke’s a slut — she wants us to pay her to have a lot of sex!). And usually, nothing ever has to be done about the issue that was originally being discussed. Every time.

Well, not this time.

Women voters

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“Most GOP primary voters Tuesday were male; most voters in November will be female. (Especially if Santorum’s the nominee; he lost women to Romney in Ohio; unmarried women overwhelmingly, 45-28.) Everyone’s talking about the dangerous gender gap that’s opened up for the GOP, with women flocking to the Democrats as this assault on their rights continues. I think we’re also seeing the emergence of a profound character gap. The notion that neither Romney, Santorum nor Gingrich could find a way to rebuke Limbaugh for his obscene jihad against Sandra Fluke is troubling. That none of them could find a way to express the appropriate revulsion is proof that hate has poisoned not only their party’s brand, but their moral center. It’s another GOP election night, but the only winner is President Obama.” — Joan Walsh


image: wrhmusings

Thursday morning’s 6 barely interesting things

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Sen. Levin would ‘love’ Armed Forces Network to drop Limbaugh - Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that the Armed Forces Network should drop conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I would hope the people that run it see just how offensive this is and drop it on their own volition,” Levin told CNN. VoteVets.org, the largest progressive group for American military veterans, is calling on the American Forces Network to stop broadcasting Limbaugh’s show in the wake of his attack on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. “Rush Limbaugh has a freedom of speech and can say what he wants, but in light of his horribly misogynistic comments, American Forces Radio should no longer give him a platform,” they said. “Our entire military depends on troops respecting each other – women and men. There simply can be no place on military airwaves for sentiments that would undermine that respect. When many of our female troops use birth control, for Limbaugh to say they are ‘sluts’ and ‘prostitutes’ is beyond the pale.” || Send an e-mail to the Armed Forces Network, telling them there is no place on military airwaves for talk like Limbaugh’s. || Remember, your tax dollars fund the Armed Forces Network, which means you’re funding Rush’s co-pay for Viagra — so essentially we’re all paying Limbaugh to have sex! [image: leftish]

ANALYSIS: In Almost Every Primary, Romney Wins Big Among The Rich, Loses The Working-Class Vote - In both states, Romney won among those making more than $100,000 by 14 points, even though he lost among all other income demographics. This trend occurs in virtually every state that has voted thus far. A ThinkProgress analysis of exit/entrance polls from the 14 states that have conducted them shows that Romney consistently does best among those earning more than $100,000 or $200,000 a year, while more often than not losing among middle- and working-class voters. The only states where this wasn’t true were Massachusetts, his home state where he served as governor, and Virginia, where Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich weren’t even on the ballot.

Number of U.S. Hate Groups on the Rise, Report Says - [A]ccording to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center… which has kept track of such groups for 30 years, recorded 1,018 hate groups operating last year. The number of groups whose ideology is organized against specific racial, religious, sexual or other characteristics has risen steadily since 2000, when 602 were identified, the center said. Antigay groups, for example, have risen to 27 from 17 in 2010. The report also described a “stunning” rise in the number of groups it identifies as part of the so-called patriot and militia movements, whose ideologies include deep distrust of the federal government. In 2011, the center tracked 1,274 of those groups, up from 824 the year before.

Gun Sales Rise In Texas As NRA Spouts Anti-Obama Fantasies (or how the rightwing nutjob base will believe ANYTHING the NRA tells them!) - National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, recently claimed that Obama would eliminate the Second Amendment — and guns owners’ rights — if he is re-elected. “All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term,” he said at the Conservative Poliltical Action Conference last month. Once he does not have another election to worry about, LaPierre told conservatives that Obama would “get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom.”

Never Do Anything / Your GOP-led Congress not at work - The reason [Boehner] lost the urban/suburban Republicans is because Teabaggers stripped out mass transit funding, since Madison, Hamilton and Washington didn’t ride light rail. Boehner knows he’s in trouble: “The American people entrusted us with the majority in the House. What we do with it us up to us,” he said. “We can use it to take steps together, one at a time, toward the vision we share. Or we can do nothing. We can squander the time we’ve been given … allowing our internal disagreements to paralyze us.” Only the soft bigotry of low expectations would let someone think that passing a highway bill, the most bog standard piece of everyday legislation, is an indicator that the House isn’t paralyzed. Boehner knows he’s doomed to repeat 1948 and his suicide caucus won’t let him do anything about it.

Massive solar storm heading for Earth - Airlines and energy suppliers are on alert as the largest solar storm in five years heads toward Earth, threatening to disrupt flights and power lines. The eruption on the surface of the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), has led to a “massive amount of solar particles heading towards Earth”, which are due to hit the planet between 6am and 10am on Thursday morning, a Met Office spokesman said. But he added that the phenomenon was likely to go unnoticed by most. The forecaster has advised airlines that they may reroute planes from near the polar regions where the radiation caused by the storm is likely to be most intense, while energy suppliers have been warned that the National Grid could also be affected. Solar storms can also cause communication problems, such as radio blackouts, as well as affecting satellites, disrupting oil pipelines and making global positioning systems (GPS) less accurate.

Nasa footage shows two solar flares erupting on the sun:

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