The Limbaugh Fight: Will the Winner Get an
Asterisk in the Record Book

post from The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! on 06 March 2012 02:00:58 PM. © The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

Let’s get this straight. In my opinion, Rush Limbaugh was wrong. He was wrong in calling a young woman a slut and prostitute. He was insincere, at best, in his multiple apologies. He was wrong – or deliberately lying – about salient information covering contraception.

He’s done this many times before. Yet, the Dittohead Nation always answers the clarion calls to defend him and their other conservative heroes with a scorched earth policy comprised of, “it was those dirty (liberals, leftists, socialists, communists, Nazis, or secular humanists, take your pick) “made me do it” and a series of “heartfelt” apologies that are anything but.

In short, the man is a dog rocket, but his oft repeated claim that Democrats are just as guilty at slinging the mud at him has some validity.

Previously rebuked Don Imus called Limbaugh an “insincere pig“. Liberal talking head Ed Schultz made similar cracks about Fox’s Laura Ingraham, calling her a “talk slut”. Not exactly taking the high road and just as bad as taking Rush’s low road.

This same tit-for-tat, “I never do it, but the other side always does it” argument is rampant in today’s toxic political environment. Politics has become a zero sum game where scorning any sort of compromise is accepted as the cost of doing political business. It’s unfortunate, but not unexpected.

America’s biggest bloviators have honed the art of sneak attacks while hiding behind the other side’s temerity in saying bad things. The point is you poke another kid on the playground in the eye and then deny the whole thing ever happened – despite witnesses and security camera. Though both sides claim the righteousness of taking responsibility for their actions, they really mean everyone but them.

If you call someone a slut, own it. Say, “Yes I did it” or say nothing to start things at all. This takes a disciplined mind, but it also takes a disciplined mouth – something most commentators don’t have.

I take full responsibility for what I write. I frequently say bad things about stupid people, but try to acknowledge that folks of the opposite opinion do stupid things too – like in this post.

My blog may be bombastic, but I try to be open-minded about what other folks feel. I learn a lot from those exchanges and sometimes so do the people with opinions different than mine. Those exchanges rarely change my mind because I believe for a variety of reasons mine are better. The only thing I’m normally swayed by are immutable facts – not opinions about them – that cause me to question my own logic. Agreeing to disagree is a good thing, but truly taking responsibility for what you say is even better.

Let the disagreements begin!

The Omnipotent Poobah speaks about crapweasels and politics
Laura Ingraham Blasts The View: When I Was Called A Slut, Barbara Walters Laughed It Off (mediaite.com)
The ‘me too’ politics of a pro-Limbaugh counter-offensive (examiner.com)
Rush Limbaugh Too Big to Fail (newser.com)
Note to Rush Limbaugh On What A Real Apology Looks Like (themoderatevoice.com)
Ed Schultz Teaches Rush Limbaugh A Lesson On Apologies By Replaying His To Laura Ingraham (mediaite.com)
Sears REALLY Wants You To Know It Doesn’t Advertise On Rush Limbaugh’s Show (businessinsider.com)
Limbaugh Says Apology Was Sincere, Fluke Says She Doesn’t Care (mediabistro.com)
KSFO’s JD Hayworth Tells Rush Limbaugh’s Advertisers “We’d Love to Have You Over Here” (blogs.sfweekly.com)
Rush Limbaugh: Do Democrats want uproar to continue? – Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)
The Kirk Cameron-Rush Limbaugh Controversy Scorecard: Who’s in Worse Trouble? (eonline.com)
Rush Limbaugh advertisers keep heading for the exits (thestar.com)
Rush Limbaugh: Do Democrats want uproar to continue? – Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)
The Kirk Cameron-Rush Limbaugh Controversy Scorecard: Who’s in Worse Trouble? (eonline.com)
Rush Limbaugh advertisers keep heading for the exits (thestar.com)

Read The Full Article:
http://omnipotentpoobah.com/2012/03/06/the-limbaugh-fight-will-the-winner-get-an-
asterisk-in-the-record-book/

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Super Tuesday Primary Primer

post from Firedoglake on 06 March 2012 02:00:48 PM. © Firedoglake

Today is the all important Super Tuesday. Ten states with nearly 20 percent of the total delegates are voting in the Republican presidential primary: Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/33_M496iATY/

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Stanford Verdict

post from Talking Points Memo on 06 March 2012 02:00:46 PM. © Talking Points Memo

The jury in the federal criminal trial of Allen Stanford has reached a verdict. More soon ...[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/S56GUCl94QY/stanford_verdic
t.php

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Stanford Convicted

post from Talking Points Memo on 06 March 2012 02:00:46 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Ponzi-scheming knight Allen Stanford convicted on 13 of the 14 felony counts against him.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/lolhUJ36UbM/stanford_convic
ted.php

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Obama Press Conference Starting ... Now

post from Talking Points Memo on 06 March 2012 02:00:46 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Watch live.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/W-wefyJObEw/obama_press_con
ference_starting_now.php

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Krugman on Cato integritythey were
"insufficiently hackish" for Koch Bros

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 06 March 2012 02:00:18 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

I can't resist: Schadenfreude, c'est moi. The Professor delivers the shiv:

Via Brad DeLong, I see that the Kochs are trying to take over Cato, which they view as insufficiently hackish.

They must have high standards in this regard; after all, Cato is, among other things, a place that had something called the Project on Social Security Privatization, which it renamed the Project on Social Security Choice when it turned out that ?privatization? polled badly ? and tried to purge its records, to make it look as if they had never used the word privatization.

There's more, of course, but why bother?

Is Cato a client state that sometimes does good work, and only sometimes?

Do you still need to ask?

GP

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/AUo0k8lL3o0/krugman-on-cato-integri
tythey-were.html

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Top Donor Is Confident Romney Secretly Supports
‘Climate-Change Controls’

post from ThinkProgress on 06 March 2012 02:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Julian H. Robertson, Jr.

Mitt Romney’s top donor is Environmental Defense Fund board member Julian H. Robertson Jr., who has given $1.3 million to the Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future even though Romney has viciously attacked the climate cap-and-trade policies EDF supports. A spokesperson for the hedge-fund billionaire said that Robertson is confident Romney is lying to the public when he campaigns against climate action as the “Soros agenda,” and will “do the right thing” if elected:

In terms of the environment and climate-change controls, which [Julian Robertson] does believe is one of the most important issues the country and the world faces, he has confidence that Romney, once he?s in there, will do the right thing.

Robertson has been a long-time supporter of Romney, saying he’s “the smartest guy I’ve ever seen” in 2007. Robertson vigorously supported Obama’s cap-and-trade bill in 2009, because of the “danger of global warming.”

If Romney intends to support climate-change controls as president, he certainly hasn’t given any such indication on the campaign trail:

“Unlike Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney never sat next to Nancy Pelosi in an ad funded by George Soros on behalf of Al Gore?s global warming initiative. As recently as 2008, the Soros agenda had no better friend than Newt Gingrich.” [2/2/12]
“In my administration, coal will not be a four-letter word.” [3/5/12]
“I can tell you the right course for America with regard to energy policy is to focus on job creation and not global warming.” [11/2/11]

“In place of real energy, Obama has focused on an imaginary world where government-subsidized windmills and solar panels could power the economy. This vision has failed.” [3/5/12]
?President Obama has achieved his goal of making energy more expensive in this country. We must abandon his course of restricting supply, increasing regulation, and hoping for miraculous new technologies to save the day. Instead, we should take advantage of the enormous reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas; the potential of nuclear; and the innovation of our private sector; which will power this nation for the century to come.? [3/1/12]
“I like wind and solar sources of energy; I think they’re great, but they are not going to drive our cars.” [3/1/12]
“There have been two big issues in the last five or six years that Republicans have faced. One has been cap and trade. And the president pushed it, the Democrats pushed it, and Newt Gingrich stood up ? well, sat down ? with Nancy Pelosi and pushed legislation, cap-and-trade legislation. Did an ad about global warming. That is not conservatism.” [12/20/11]
“I do not believe in a cap-and-trade program.” [10/28/11]
“Almost everything [Obama]‘s done there had made it harder to businesses to reboot and start hiring people. Obamacare, that didn’t encourage people to hire, cap and trade, that didn’t encourage people to go out and hire.” [1/18/12]
“My view is that we don?t know what?s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.” [10/28/11]
“I will pursue dramatic regulatory reform to accelerate the exploration and development of oil and gas, to facilitate construction of vital infrastructure and to preserve and expand crucial electricity capacity.” [3/5/12]
“[Obama] doesn’t get credit for the increase; he instead has tried to slow the growth of oil and gas production in this country, and coal production in this country. So far from taking credit, he should be hanging his head and taking a little bit of the blame for what’s going on today.” [3/1/12]
“The EPA wants to be able to get in and grab more power and basically try and move the whole economy away from oil, gas, coal, nuclear and push it into the renewables.” [12/5/11]
“I will modernize our outdated environmental laws to take cost into account, and stop the EPA?s practice of using imaginary benefits to justify onerous burdens.” [3/5/12]
“I would get the EPA out of its effort to manage carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and trucks. Look, that was not a pollutant within the meaning of the legislation that authorized the EPA.” [12/5/11]
“The United States is blessed with a cornucopia of carbon-based energy resources. Developing them has been a pathway to prosperity for the nation in the past and offers similar promise for the future.” [3/1/12]
“I’ll get us that oil from Canada that we deserve. And by the way I’m going to open up our lands for development so we can finally get the energy in this country that we need at a price we can afford.” [2/28/12]
“Instead of President Obama’s doomed strategy of creating jobs that are good for the environment, we need a strategy to create an environment that is good for jobs.” [10/24/11]

“President Obama has been waging war on the entire coal industry,” Romney’s energy policy statement reads. “His initial proposal for cap-and-trade, the complex scheme for allowing industries to trade the right to emit greenhouses gases, would have been a crippling blow to the U.S. economy.” Romney promises to amend the Clean Air Act “and remove carbon dioxide from its purview.”

Other donors betting on a colossal climate flip-flop by Romney, Politico reports, include billionaire Trammel Crow, Republicans for Environmental Protection president Rob Sisson, and former Gov. Thomas Kean (R-NJ). Romney is advised by Greg Mankiw, a conservative Harvard economist who supports a carbon tax.

However, Team Romney is flush with oil and coal interests, including oil-shale billionaire Harold Hamm, coal kingpin Bill Koch, tar sands lobbyist David Wilkins, coal-power lobbyist Jeffrey Holmstead, and coal lobbyist Jim Talent. Coal, oil, and gas companies have contributed at least $1.2 million to Romney’s Super PAC.

Update

At Daily Kos, A. Siegel wonders who should be angrier: Tea Party voters or EDF members.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/06/438550/top-donor-is-confident-romney-se
cretly-supports-climate-change-controls/

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Time Warner Takes on Cord Cutting

This is…shockingly sensible:

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt may be the most prominent media exec making this important point: ?Our whole (entertainment) ecosystem should try to create affordability,? he told investors today at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. ?A lot of the people who are living paycheck to paycheck want our product, but simply can?t afford it. Many entertainment executives are in denial about this, but it?s happening.? Big Media ignores that fact at its peril: The vast majority of the industry?s profits come from cable networks ? but the chief of the No. 2 cable company says that the pay TV business ?is fundamentally not growing.? Programmers and networks have ignored that: ?What they?re trying to do is grow by raising prices? on companies like Time Warner Cable, Britt says. That may work for a while, but ?it clearly is not sustainable.? One of his strategies to deal with that is offering TV Essentials ? a low-cost package of channels that doesn?t include costly sports services led by ESPN as well as popular networks such as TNT, Comedy Central, Fox News and MSNBC. ?We?re clearly moving away from one size fits all,? Britt says.

It’s not the end of bundling, but it’s an important experiment, and it’ll be fascinating to see how it works out. I always think of the opportunity to buy premium cable channels without the rest of the package as the thing that would bring in new subscribers and prevent full-on cord cutting, but maybe Bravo, USA and company would be enough to keep people hanging on. I doubt that Time Warner would release a comprehensive dataset publicly, but I would love to know how many people who are planning to leave end up deciding to stay once they’re offered TV Essentials, and how many subscribers the new service brings in.

Britt also explained that the company is experimenting with a metered-useage internet subscription plan in Texas. As irritating as we super-users might find something like this?my Netflix streaming alone would send me into penury, much less the whole blogging from home thing?this is clearly the future. We already see it on phone data plans. And most cable and internet companies are offering differential pricing on speed. Tiering in both of those areas may mean that not everyone gets the same quality of service, but if it means that some people can afford access they might not otherwise have, and we’re paying overall to maintain the network we use, that’s probably a good thing. I agree with those of you have complained about the fact that the same companies provide our cable and internet, and who think it stifles pricing and plan innovation. But these are good experiments.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/03/06/437143/time-warner-takes-on-cord-cutti
ng/

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Same-Sex Couple Is First Couple to Marry at
Occupy DC

Marina Brown and Laura Potter, two long-time members of the Occupy DC encampment, tied the knot under a statue of General James McPherson in front of a crowd of about 30 fellow occupiers and attendees on Saturday. The couple, who has been together 15 years, was “the first couple (and, inherently, the first same-sex couple) to be married at Occupy DC.” The ceremony was officiated by Presbyterian Minister Brian Merritt, a gay marriage advocate who has officiated over eight same-sex weddings since same-sex marriage was legalized in Washington, DC. Occupiers in Zuccotti Park, New York hosted the movement’s first same-sex wedding in November.

– Fatima Najiy

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/03/06/438859/same-sex-couple-is-first-couple-t
o-marry-at-occupy-dc/

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Limbaugh Bemoans Uppity
‘Overeducated’ Single Women

Rush Limbaugh refrained from directly attacking Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke today, spending most of the first hour of his show warning about a coming liberal war on food. But he still apparently couldn’t resist throwing a jab at women. In lengthy screed against a new book on the American food system by author Tracie McMillan, asking rhetorically, “What is it with all of these young, single, white women, overeducated — doesn’t mean intelligent.” Listen here: