Rush Limbaugh insults law student

Where are the conservative leaders to denounce this?
It will be interesting to see how the Republican party does in fall elections among independent women voters if their associates keep up this type of stuff.

Limbaugh uses ugly language to insult Fluke

Without even reading this I can only respond: Rush Limbaugh is an insult to the human race.

Personally I was more "insulted" by his comments on Danica Patrick.

I know he's a clown paid to be a clown, or in the culture war about equitable to a porno star (paid to be nasty and surrogate-masturbate the audience), but forgetting this factual defense: He's dense in general.

The irony is, Rush actually sometime back bitched about having to take all the "evil liberal media" clips from MSNBC or Keith Olbermann at Current TV (which thankfully, he's ignored in his little piss-ant kingdom*) because he can't press much mustard from the other media sources.

In short what I'm saying is, he's part of a circle jerk.

*=Which happened to Glenn Beck too, and should as well to Rush.

They guy is a disgusting lard ass PIG! They keep playing that clip over and over and it makes me wanna pewk.




TIS

He tries to magnify his spotlight by being as bombastic as possible. He tried it at ESPN and for the most part it keeps him in the news and is a clever gimmick to maintain ratings. His stunts aren't aimed to attract like-minded listeners, but Rush wants very much to attract liberals and people who disagree with him. Many, who hate him, have to listen each day to hear what he's going to do next. Today you can bet that he'll have a larger audience.

But with this recent outburst I think he sunk to a new low by being crude and disrespectful. While I don't think that the GOP has to apologize for his distasteful remarks, they may pay a price for it as they have to distance themselves from his attack.

klydon - I was going to post earlier that there is no way any GOPer would publicly disown Rush's recent nonsense, but I was wrong.

John Boehner: Rush Limbaugh ‘slut’ remark ‘inappropriate’

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73546.html

Rush is an asshole. This is news?

There's a better chance of a Kardashian staying celibate than shutting that moron up.

Where's his indignation about prescription coverage for Cialis and Viagra?? Isn't that paying a MAN to have sex?? Or is that OK??

Not to mention that he's a pillhead himself.

Oh, that's totally different. It'd be a necessity for a man. The little woman's place is in the kitchen and serving her master.

He's such a big POS.


TIS

there's only a few people that i won't feel sad for when they pass...limbaugh is on that list.

I don't like Limbaugh and never have. He's a self-admitted water-carrying hack for the Republican Party. But that said...


Sandra Fluke is Wrong in Contraceptive Debacle, Rush Limbaugh is Right
By Kayleigh McEnany
March 2, 2012

When Georgetown University Law student Sandra Fluke spoke out against Georgetown's contraception policy before Congress, arguing that birth control should be covered by health insurance and religious institutions, Rush Limbaugh countered with a generous proposition: "I will buy all of the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as they want."

This was Limbaugh's way of offering to pay for the "birth control" Fluke wants the government to force Catholic Jesuits to pay for, despite knowing it is against Catholic doctrine and deliberately choosing to attend a Catholic university.

Limbaugh's solution is straightforward and, let's be honest, an age-old nugget of advice passed on from mothers to daughters; it's the kind of absurd response that Fluke's testimony before a faux congressional committee merited.

I am a graduate of Georgetown University, and, like Fluke, I, too, have been accepted to their law school. But I take a much more sober view of the campus. While walking the dignified grounds of Georgetown, I saw what anyone would see on a typical college campus: students with the dreaded-exam-coming-up face, students with the hung-over nausea of having "one too many" the night before, and I saw teachers with the I-don't-feel-like-grading-any-of-this face.

But I definitely didn't see: "The faces of the women affected by this lack of contraception coverage" who have "suffered financially, emotionally, medically," as Fluke alleges. Fluke must occupy the "one too many" category, for she paints a picture of Georgetown that can only be found deep in the corner of the "Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies" class, where all men are predators, and "no means no," but a liberated woman only says "yes."

Before this pretend congressional committee and the plastic Joker-grin of Nancy Pelosi, Fluke recounted the rare incidences of women needing birth control for medical reasons, as if that's the norm. She then twisted this into a justification for why religious institutions should subsidize women who want to have rampant sex without consequences.

According to Fluke, 40 percent of women at Georgetown struggle with $3,000 contraception bills over the course of law school. Three grand! That's a condom for breakfast, lunch and dinner sex every day for three consecutive years!

Assuming Fluke is the liberated woman she claims to be, it's amazing she had enough time to saunter out of her bedchamber and come to Congress.

In a sane world, Fluke would have earned the ire of the liberal media and feminists for portraying women as helpless wards of the state who have no choice but to submit to men. But this world is not sane, so all guns blazed at the all-knowing, all-feeling, all-seeing, all-everything Maha Rushie.

What did Limbaugh do other than state the obvious? He said: "Well, what would you call someone who wants us to pay for her to have sex? What would you call that woman? You'd call 'em a slut, a prostitute or whatever."

I'd like to supplement Limbaugh's analysis with a few additional descriptions. Fluke is impractical, foolish, and a disgrace to Georgetown. Plus, she has deliberately glossed over the implications of her demands.

If the government forces Catholic institutions to provide contraception against their doctrine, not only are we trampling on religious liberty, but we're opening the door for all sorts of tomfoolery.

Are the Jesuits then obliged to provide pot to distraught, empty-pocketed stoners, vibrators to lonely females, or porn to the sex-crazed teenage boy? Where does it stop? And do her male partners bear no responsibility, or do we have to pay for her cab home, too?

When we demand religious institutions provide coverage of contraception, abortion and sterilization as the Obamacare mandate does, we trivialize what it means to suffer "financially, emotionally, medically." And if we compel insurance companies to supply recreational items like contraception, how can we not make them foot the bill for medically necessitated items like Band-Aids, Neosporin, tampons, pads, and the like?

All of this will be sorted out, likely by the Supreme Court, which will hopefully rule the First Amendment is a law higher than Obama's. But until they decide, I worry that Fluke will continue to fret about who'll pay for her birth control.

The good news is, until she's out of Georgetown, she can take the harmless, loveable little fuzz ball up on his offer of birth control aspirin. But wait, what am I thinking? Fluke must have plenty of aspirin on hand. After all, she's obviously never told a man: "Not tonight. I have a headache."

Kayleigh McEnany is a writer and political activist who graduated from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and studied at Oxford University. She is the founder of www.RealReaganConservative.com. She writes every Tuesday for the International Business Times.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/308187/2...-georgetown.htm

Anyone else see a parallel in this woman wanting a Catholic school to provide birth control and the lesbian from the other thread wanting her priest to give her communion?




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRC0nsjtKQ

Interesting point, Ivy. I can not see how a federal mandate requiring Catholic schools and hospitals to pay for artificial birth control will survive Constitutional scrutiny.

Georgetown University should not have to pay for its employees' and students' birth control.

There are ways to make points about the proper role of mandates or what should be included in basic health care without calling people sluts, whores or prostitutes or going off on jihads against the social changes of the past 50 years.

To the extent that Republicans can't do that or don't want to do that I think they may pay a cost electorally. As I wrote elsewhere religious freedom is a serious argument and one that initially attracted religious and even non-religious people to oppose the contraceptive mandate. Calling women names just plays into the hands of the opposition and will confirm some people's belief that Republicans/conservatives have gone round the bend.

That's exactly right, Lilo. Limbaugh is a buffoon and a misogynist, but we already knew that. Hell, his fanbase already knows this, and they love him for it. I say don't play into his trap. He's LOVING this.

I think the original point of this thread was Rush's name calling, etc. Not whether or not this woman's point of view on free contraception is right or wrong. But to play Devil's Advocate about her stance on the matter, I'll openly state that I think she's wrong on this one.

I mean, why choose a Catholic school if these are your beliefs? If you're an Islamophobe, would you choose Al-Azhar University as a place to pursue higher education? If you're an anti-Semite, would you go live on a Kibbutz?

You can't tell me that---at least subconsciously---she didn't have this soapbox/fifteen minutes of fame on her mind.

That's like assuming every Notre Dame football player is Catholic, or that everybody that goes to Ivy League schools are Yankees. Or that every Republican is a Bible-humper. Or that anybody can only belong to what would publicly be conceived as their safe comfort zone.

No No No No.

Besides Georgetown doesn't provide contraceptives in its health care coverage. Let's not forget that nugget of truth.

Lilo is right about the story getting lost for the GOP. David Frum tweeted something better than my 1000 words can.

Well, they're certainly not for people from Tennessee, where the educational ceiling is usually, "do you want fries with that?"

HA! So true. Well except for the state's elite offspring.

(I had more in mind Texas' Dubya.)

And you've known me for six years, so you KNOW I'm just fucking with you. Plus, I know you're originally a Broward County kid, which is mostly Yankees anyway .

(CNN) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum labeled Rush Limbaugh "absurd" over disparaging remarks from the radio talk show host directed at a law student who testified before a House panel in support of access to contraceptives.

"He's being absurd, but that's you know, an entertainer can be absurd," Santorum told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday. "He's in a very different business than I am."

The underlying point here is that people today have been told they have certain "rights." And heaven forbid if a church, or an institution, or a government deprive them of these so called "rights." Everything should be bent or changed or altered to accommodate them. And don't you dare disagree with them because, in doing so, you are against them having their "rights."


And, yes, Limbaugh is a buffoon. As is Hannity. I even think Glen Beck gets carried away a lot. Of course, none of them come close to Michael Savage. From a conservative point of view, the talk show I'd suggest is Michael Medved.

I'm a conservative but I don't watch Fox News. I don't like the idea of people trying to spoon feed me something. Of course, I don't watch MSNBC either because they're doing the same thing from the other end. Even though they lean a little to the left, I watch CNN the most because they're closest to being right in the middle; i.e. balanced and with as little of an agenda as possible.

Fox news just reported that Rush apologized for remarks about that young woman.

Good for Rush.. His comments were inappropriate because they were premature. If he had waited until she graduated law school and passed the bar exam, then his insults would have had an appropriate basis.

Plus, she could have sued him.

Bingo.

Fluke definitely has an agenda and motivation. Not saying anything's wrong with that...I just probably disagree with it more often than not..

As you know I like the writer Steve Barnes. One of Barnes's mentors/friends and a man who is politically miles apart from Barnes and light years away from myself is the sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle who wrote this about the Georgetown/Fluke flare up.

If the Republicans had been able to just keep it on this level they may have won. There's a good argument to be made about the balance of private/public choices, who pays for them and how strong religious exemptions should be.

But as the Georgetown President, who disagrees with Fluke's position, pointed out we all lose something when discourse becomes degraded.

It's finally been shown that if enough people push hard enough Limbaugh will back down. As Vito might say that is useful information to be stored away for later...

Nice, Lilo. Jerry Pournelle is right on the money (with that particular article, he's pretty insane otherwise). Thanks for posting.

I like Barnes a lot. I didn't realize that he was so close to Pournelle.

I've not heard Rush's "apology," though some called it half-hearted, insincere, and I don't know (or care honestly) if it really was or not. That said, apparently some sponsors agree because he lost a few more today. Peggy Noonan called him a "pig," and Cantor was alot more harsh in his rhetoric against Rush compared to Boehner or Santorum.

George Will:




That last line is so MF true.

But Rush will survive this, but the GOP as a whole took a hit because of him. And I'm sure they'll do it again sometime down the road.

Paul: Limbaugh Apologized Because Of His 'Bottom Line'

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/paul-limbaugh-apologized-because-of-his-bottom-line

updated 3/4/2012 4:55:25 PM ET 2012-03-04T21:55:25

NEW YORK — A flower company is the seventh advertiser to pull its ads from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh's radio program in reaction to his derogatory comments about a law student who testified about birth control policy.

ProFlowers said Sunday on its Facebook page that it has suspended advertising on Limbaugh's program because his comments about Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke "went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company."

People get funny when you mess with their money.

There you go.

If the Republicans are smart (and some of them are), the'll let this become a blessing in disguise. Maybe they'll lose their collective fear of that fat asshole and hopefully distance themselves from him.

The remarks that Ronnie posted from George Will were right on the money. The guy is brilliant.

Now AOL has jumped the Limbaugh ship.

I know I'm a little late to this but I don't know one person who even listens to his show anymore.

Allstate too today.

Not that I bothered with this either, but Rush's "additional" comments on his apology allegedly came off as the ultimate pity party, decorated by Victimology-R-Us.

~Ice Cube should've put a cap in his fatass for trying to pass the buck off on rap.

EDIT - and Peter Gabriel is asking Rush to quit playing his song "Sledgehammer" on his radio program.

Rush is not an elected Republican, so the party has no obligation to denounce it.

cough...


Sandra Fluke, Gender Reassignment, and Health Insurance
Stephen Gutowski
March 5, 2012


Sandra Fluke is being sold by the left as something she's not. Namely a random co-ed from Georgetown law who found herself mixed up in the latest front of the culture war who was simply looking to make sure needy women had access to birth control. That, of course, is not the case.

As many have already uncovered Sandra Fluke she is, in reality, a 30 year old long time liberal activist who enrolled at Georgetown with the express purpose of fighting for the school to pay for students' birth control. She has been pushing for mandated coverage of contraceptives at Georgetown for at least three years according to the Washington Post.

However, as I discovered today, birth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if "gender reassignment" surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance. She makes these views clear in an article she co-edited with Karen Hu in the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law.

The title of the article, which can be purchased in full here, is Employment Discrimination Against LGBTQ Persons and was published in the Journal's 2011 Annual Review. I have posted a transcript of the section I will be quoting from here. In a subsection of the article entitled "Employment Discrimination in Provision of Employment Benefits" starting on page 635 of the review Sandra Fluke and her co-editor describe two forms of discrimination in benefits they believe LGBTQ individuals face in the work place:

"Discrimination typically takes two forms: first, direct discrimination limiting access to benefits specifically needed by LGBTQ persons, and secondly, the unavailability of family-related benefits to LGBTQ families."

Their "prime example" of the first form of discrimination? Not covering sex change operations:

"A prime example of direct discrimination is denying insurance coverage for medical needs of transgender persons physically transitioning to the other gender."

This so called "prime example" of discrimination is expounded on in a subsection titled "Gender Reassignment Medical Services" starting on page 636:

"Transgender persons wishing to undergo the gender reassignment process frequently face heterosexist employer health insurance policies that label the surgery as cosmetic or medically unnecessary and therefore uncovered."

To be clear, the argument here is that employers are engaging in discrimination against their employees who want them to pay for their sex changes because their "heterosexist" health insurance policies don't believe sex changes are medically necessary.

Additionally Sandra Fluke and her co-editor have an answer for why exactly these "heterosexist" insurance policies, and the courts that side with them, deem sex changes as medically unnecessary:

"In Mario v. P & C Food Markets, Inc., an employee who was denied such coverage brought claims under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security (ERISA) and Title VII. The court rejected the ERISA claim, finding the plaintiff's mastectomy and hormone therapy were not medically necessary. The court's ruling was based upon controversy within the medical community regarding that treatment plan. Much of that controversy has been linked to ignorance and bias against transgender persons, and the American Medical Association has declared the lack of coverage to be discrimination."

You see, all opposition to the determination that sex changes are medically necessary, and therefor must be covered by private employer provided health insurance, is based on "ignorance and bias against transgender persons".

The section on discrimination against those seeking gender reassignment ends with Sandra Fluke and her co-editor wondering why more lawsuits aren't filed against private employers on these grounds. Especially in comparison to the frequency with which these types of cases are filed against Medicare, Medicaid, and even the prison system:

"The reason for this lack of cases is unclear. Private employee insurance plans do not more frequently cover this need, so it may be a sign that transgender employees do not see the courts as likely to provide any assistance against private employers."

The argument made in this article edited by Sandra Fluke and Karen Hu is quite clear. "Gender reassignment" is a medically necessary set of procedures that must be covered under employee provided health insurance policies. If it is not covered by those policies that is tantamount to discrimination and legal action should be taken against the employer.

So, as you can see, Sandra Fluke is not what she is being sold as. Instead she is a liberal activist pushing some rather radical ideas. Keep that in mind as the left holds her up in the spotlight.

http://mrctv.org/blog/sandra-fluke-gender-reassignment-and-health-insurance

So we're learning a little more about this woman.

Why not? Media did extensive background check of "Joe The Plumber", so why not do the same here? Fair is fair.

Limbaugh is a wack job and its sad that this guy gets the number of listeners/has the influence he does. I saw this new article that did a national study where they showed as America has become more diverse with different viewpoints from various people, higher educated, etc most Americans (especially those under 35) identify themselves as Liberal. While the GOP continues to have support amongst those who are increasingly old white males with little education, etc.

Just some info.

I guess you want to fit in to the young liberal sect.

Do you consider Italians to be white, "people of color" or somewhere in between, say "ethnics"?

If you think the whites who support the GOP have little education, how would you classify all the minorities and white trash who are life-long liberals? It's not just the GOP that has their fair share of uneducated voters.

Ethnic for Italians

My comment was referring to trend changes in regards to conservative/liberal identification across the country amongst the population. Obcourse I agree that both groups have uneducated segments, and for the record "white trash" eg poor, white uneducated, and mostly rural largely identify as conservative.

this isnt the article i found but this trend is now even more magnified

GOP’s Base Now Predominately Uneducated, Poor White Folk

It seems that the GOP’s current stance on social, cultural and religious issues is finally managing to weed out…well pretty much everyone who has an actual thought process:

Republicans have lost an enormous amount of support among upscale voters, basically just breaking even among those with household incomes above $50,000 a year, a traditional GOP stronghold. Similarly, McCain’s losing to Obama among college graduates and voters who have attended some college underscores how much the GOP franchise is in trouble. My hunch is that the Republican Party’s focus on social, cultural, and religious issues — most notably, fights over embryonic-stem-cell research and Terri Schiavo — cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.

Sadly, judging by the popular vote totals there’s still a whole crapload of them left.

http://jamespoling.com/gops-base-now-predominately-uneducated-poor-white-folk/

Learn Or Languish
The GOP's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.

What did we learn from this election? The results certainly confirmed that Republicans are demoralized. President-elect Obama's vote total -- 66 million -- was about 4 million higher than President Bush's total of four years ago. Sen. John McCain's 58 million tally was about 1 million votes fewer than Sen. John Kerry garnered last time. As expected, overall turnout went up, but much of the gain among Democratic voters was offset by a decline among Republicans.

Although young people turned out in higher numbers than they did four years ago, the increase was proportionate with the electorate as a whole. Most non-Republican voters turned out in higher numbers this year than in 2004. One key to Barack Obama's victory, however, was his overwhelming support among voters ages 18 to 29, whom he won by 34 points, 66 percent to 32 percent; and his support among those ages 30 to 44, whom he carried by 6 points, 52 percent to 46 percent. Those numbers are ominous for Republicans looking to 2010 and beyond.

Moreover, this election reminded us yet again that organization matters. Where the huge Obama machine was at work, Democrats tended to do very well. In states that his campaign didn't target, his party fared less well. Democrats looked quite strong in some parts of the country but much less so in others, flipping five state legislative chambers into their column while losing four others. Where Obama was an asset, he really was, and where he was a liability, he really was that, too.

We also learned that there are two Souths. There is a "New South," which includes Virginia, North Carolina, and, to a lesser extent, Georgia. In this South, which has lots of suburbs, transplants, and younger college graduates, Obama and other Democrats won or ran well above the norm for their party. In the older South, which has more small-town and rural voters, fewer transplants, and a more downscale electorate, Obama actually performed worse than Kerry.

In general, in the higher-growth segments of our country, Republicans lost ground, prevailing only in small towns and rural areas. When Democrats win the suburbs, Republicans are in trouble.

Republicans have lost an enormous amount of support among upscale voters, basically just breaking even among those with household incomes above $50,000 a year, a traditional GOP stronghold. Similarly, McCain's losing to Obama among college graduates and voters who have attended some college underscores how much the GOP franchise is in trouble. My hunch is that the Republican Party's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues -- most notably, fights over embryonic-stem-cell research and Terri Schiavo -- cost its candidates dearly among upscale voters.

The question now is whether Republicans will quickly learn from their mistakes -- retooling and rebranding their party soon, putting themselves in a position to capitalize on the missteps of the Obama administration and the rest of the Democratic Party -- or will languish, reduced to waiting for the Democrats to collapse and for GOP candidates to win simply because they aren't Democrats.

Those who write off the 2008 election by saying that Republican candidates weren't conservative enough are in denial. They are political ostriches, refusing to acknowledge that the country and the electorate are changing and that old recipes don't work any more.

Obama's message and agenda were a far cry from those of the Democratic Party of a generation or two ago, but the Republican Party's message and agenda haven't changed much other than becoming even more fixated on cultural issues and tax cuts. A top Republican pollster remarked privately to me after the election that he couldn't think of a single new idea generated on the Republican side during the 2008 campaign.

The dialogue about what the Republican Party is and where it should go will be driven over the next couple of years not by Republican members of Congress or governors or the party apparatus, but by the GOP's presidential contenders for 2012, who will be fanning out across the country before the month is over. The question is whether the party's leaders and members will be listening. Will they be open to new approaches to dealing with a dramatically changed country? Or will they simply say, "Back to the Future"?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/cook-report/learn-or-languish-20081115

February 14, 2012
Poor, White, and Republican
Posted by George Packer

F.D.R. called him “the forgotten man,” but that was long ago. By 1972, he was a member of the silent majority and had become a Democrat for Nixon (he wore a hard hat with an American-flag sticker). 1980 produced the Reagan Democrat (this time he came from Macomb County, Michigan, and was discovered by the pollster Stan Greenberg). By 1994 he had curdled into the Angry White Male (he elected the Gingrich Congress). In 2008, he was simply the working-class white—by then he was no longer forgotten, and no longer a Democrat of any kind; he was a member of the much-analyzed Republican base. The television godfather of the type, of course, is Archie Bunker, but you can also trace his lineage more darkly through the string of hard-bitten blue-collar movies that begins with “Joe” (Peter Boyle, 1970), goes on to “Falling Down” (Michael Douglas, 1993), “Gran Torino” (Clint Eastwood, 2008), and, in a rural context, “Winter’s Bone” (2010). He’s a descendant of the thirties Everyman played by Henry Fonda and Gary Cooper, except that in the intervening decades he lost his idealism and grew surly, if not violent, consumed with a hatred of hippies, immigrants, blacks, government, and, finally, himself.

This election year, he’s back and getting a lot of attention from sociologists and pundits (Charles Murray’s new book “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” sparked the current flurry of commentary). But in 2012 he’s no longer even working class. He’s fallen through the last restraints of decency and industriousness, down into the demoralized and pathological underclass that, in the past, Americans associated with the black poor. There, he lives on disability, is no longer fit for employment nor has any impulse to get a job, is divorced, fathers illegitimate children who grow up to do the same, gets hooked on meth or prescription drugs, does time in prison now and then, and has bad teeth.

Is it useful to make generalizations about whole classes of people? We all know the reasons why it’s not—they stoke prejudice, crush nuance, distort reality, are unkind and unfair. But just as it was wrong for a generation of liberals to reject Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s notorious 1965 report “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” it would be a mistake to dismiss the subject of Murray’s new book simply because it insults half of the Americans who weren’t already tarred by “The Bell Curve.” Murray has a talent for raising important questions on the way to arriving at invidious answers.

Perhaps the biggest political puzzle of our time is why, as the lives of working-class whites have descended from the stability and comfort of “All in the Family” to the chaos and despair of “Gran Torino” and “Winter’s Bone,” these same Americans have voted more and more reliably Republican. Sunday’s Times had a fascinating and disturbing lead story about the pattern of government dependency around the country. A map showing areas of greatest reliance on public benefits corresponds with weird exactness to the map of red America: the South, Appalachia, and rural areas in general.

In addition, reliance on the safety net has more than doubled in the past four decades. During the same period, median incomes in America have stagnated or declined.

The first fact goes to the heart of Murray’s books, from “Losing Ground” and “The Bell Curve” to “Coming Apart.” The second goes unnoticed. His persistent argument is that government programs do more harm than good and create a dependent class rather than alleviating hardship, because socio-economic differences are based on innate ability, not external circumstance. The white working-class has suffered a moral collapse caused in part by the sorting of society into rich and poor, with the traditional virtues surviving only among the former—not by an economic battering at the hands of globalization, technology, and corporate power. Inequality is a natural state, and people at the bottom of society should either resign themselves to their fate, or else revive themselves through a moral and spiritual reawakening (likely inspired by their betters) that will allow them to rise above the lousy hand dealt them by their brain power.

Visit most towns or rural areas where factories are boarded up and all the economic life is confined to strip malls, and you have to acknowledge the force of Murray’s picture. Rampant drug use, high dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births, epidemic obesity, every other working-age person on disability—it’s true even though Charles Murray says it’s true. And the predictable left-right argument over causes and solutions doesn’t help. Is it disappearing jobs, or disappearing values? This isn’t an analytical choice I find very useful. Jobs and values are intertwined: when one starts to go, the other is likely to go with it, and the circle becomes truly vicious. A textile factory moves south of the border, and a town loses its mainstay of employment. Former textile workers scurry to find fast-food and retail positions. The move from blue-collar to service work is brutal, and over time some employees lose the will to stick it out in a hateful job. Their children do even worse. Soon enough there are two or three generations of one family on government help, and kids grow up without a model of the work ethic. When a technology plant opens in the area (with a fifth the number of jobs as the textile factory), few locals are remotely qualified to work there. It’s a dismally familiar story—but is it a story of jobs or values? The obvious answer is both, which is why no one’s five-point solutions or three-word slogan is convincing.

In the Times story, there’s a man named Ki Gulbranson from a small Minnesota town called Chisago, both barely clinging to the middle class. He tries to make ends meet selling apparel and refereeing kids’ soccer games. All around him, he sees growing dependence on government. No fan of government spending, he joined the Tea Party in 2010; at the same time, he benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit, free school breakfasts for his children, and Medicare for his mother. “I don’t demand that the government does this for me,” he said. “I don’t feel like I need the government.” Yet he finds it hard to imagine surviving without the safety net. “I don’t think so,” he said. “No. I don’t know. Not the way we expect to live as Americans.”

Gulbranson’s moment of hesitation contains a certain explanatory power. He doesn’t want to say that he can’t live without government. In places like Chisago, the old ethic of self-reliance is real and fierce. But it’s disintegrating under the pressure of several bad economic decades. People in Park Slope, Brooklyn and the north shore of Chicago don’t see their neighbors going on disability when they could work. But the more Gulbranson sees it, the more he resents the government. Perhaps he resents it most of all because he knows he needs it. That’s a political conundrum for both parties, but even more, it’s an American problem.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/02/poor-white-and-republican.html

Radio host Rush Limbaugh wasn’t the only one taunting Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke last week.

Actress Patricia Heaton, who stars in ABC’s “The Middle,” tweeted her take on the contraception debate, making sarcastic remarks about Fluke’s congressional testimony. An outspoken conservative, Heaton wrote various tweets on the topic, including this one: "Hey G-Town: stop buying toothpaste, soap, and shampoo! You'll save money, and no one will want to sleep with you!" On Saturday, Heaton apologized to Fluke, writing, “Mea culpa! We have diff opinions but I was too flippant in my attempt at humor.” The actress added that while she still disagrees with Fluke, she “was not showing Christ's love” in the way she handled the discussion.

While Heaton’s Twitter account appeared to be disabled for some time on Monday, the actress resurfaced and reiterated that she was sorry about the tweets.

I take it you never saw UNFORGIVEN because Eastwood would disagree.

To me, "white trash" as always been the whites in Ridgewood, Ozone Park and Deer Park Long Island. That's because I'm from NYC. And these whites are not GOP. You still see this white trash element in NYC. They go to Rangers games, free concerts in Juniper or Forest Park bandshell and they are largely Democrats.

I can never vote for a Democrat because of their assault on whites; white males in particular.

Recent examples are the New Haven Firefighters case in SCOTUS, the housing development in Westchester that bans white families from applying, affirmative action in high school and colleges that seek to reduce the number of whites who are accepted(basically Jim Crow against whites) and of course the bs with FDNY exam(again it's like Jim Crow against whites).

p.s.- The judge in the FDNY case in none other than Garaufis.

Indeed that was the story of the 2010 mid terms. You have shared good accurate information. The story of the 2012 election (besides the economy) will be whether the Democrats can hold on to just enough white working class (non-college educated) voters while maintaining a slight lead everywhere else.

If so they can win. This is a matter of great interest to political analysts. There was a long discussion on C-SPAN which I can't find right now but this article discusses the future of the Obama coalition in much the same terms.

To bring it back to the post subject, Limbaugh's insult is not just a financial misstep for him but it could be symbolic of future Republican losses among white women voters. Certainly the Democrats will do all they can to play this up in the future. The best thing that could happen for the Republicans is that Romney wins the nomination and the Republican disagreements over abortion/contraception/women working/etc are swept under the table.

Right. And that was the same metric used for Reverend Wright?? Only it wasn't.

Limbaugh is an extremely prominent Republican media personality who in his own words is a water carrier for Republican candidates. Of course when he calls a woman out of her name and suggests he wants to watch her having sex people are going to notice and ask Republicans what they think.

Jim Crow against whites??? Really??
Where are the dogs and nightsticks and firehoses?
Where is the lower pct of whites in higher education, grad school or the workforce?
Where is the lower income or wealth of whites?
Where is the higher unemployment rate?
Where are the police stops, harassment and shootings of whites?
and so on....

Because if it's really Jim Crow against whites I would expect to see at least some of that.

I won't even go into the whole Jim Crow thing. Lilo put it perfectly. But in regards to the FDNY being monitored, you left out one crucial little nugget: The FDNY was still 95% white as of last year. That's a fact. Do you really think that's fair?

When Garaufis ruled that the department was a "bastion of white privilege," he probably could have used a better choice of words, but he wasn't far off. The department has been blatantly ignoring Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 since, well, 1964.

Garaufis (who I'm no fan of, by the way) did the right thing.

Obama is the one who brought attention to Wright by writing about him in his book. Obama spoke glowingly about Wright. None of the current GOP candidates has a relationship with Rush. Rush is just another voice on the radio. The GOP is not responsible for what Rush says. They don't employ him. Does Rush even have guests on his show?

Yes, I do think it's fair. It's fair because everyone took the same test. It seems like minorities want to abolish merit and have the courts hand them a job on a silver platter.

FDNY is mostly white because whites perform better on the written. That's simple to understand.

Yes, really. Disqualifying whites for performing better on employment exams or academic entry is a form of Jim Crow against whites.

The FDNY has an exam. Everyone is allowed to take it. You can't give a test and then say it's racist when you don't like the results.

So what if 95% of FDNY is white? I'm sure that 95% of this message board is white. Does that mean we're inherently racist?

Whether it's a job or a message board, just because something is mostly white does not mean racism is the reason.

the FDNY has a dominant "old boy network" of connections in its hiring practices, where friends, relatives, or neighbors are favored over minority applicants without inside Fire Department connections which is one of the things the court found

its just interesting that in a city that largely is 50% minority white men make up 93 percent of the FDNY.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/fdny_minority_report_H7PATQYhFlXxrGrVrkfgxJ#ixzz1oNpBsNwW

not to take anything anyways from the FDNY, i have a bunch of Irish buddies who are firefighters its a very noble thing, im just making a comment

Just because NYC is 50% minority does not mean the FDNY has to be. America is 30% minority yet every time I'm on an airplane the pilots are white. Should we ask why so few pilots are minorities?

Again, just because whites outperform minorities in testing, does not prove racism.

NYC has always had a huge Italian population. Yet for some reason the higher education schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science have been mostly Jewish and Asian for decades. Should I assume bias against Italians because of this?

^^i didnt say the FDNY needs to be 50% minority, I just made a factual observation. The reason that most whites outperform minorities in standardized testing is because the lack of an adequate education many minorities receive/dont receive along with a host of other issues leads to this gap.

By comparing the racial makeup of NYC to that of the FDNY, you kind of are saying that. At the very least, you're implying that there is some kind of inherent racism. There isn't. Everyone takes the same exam. Everyone knows about the exam. This is nothing more than a bunch of activists, and bleeding heart leftists playing the race card.

Weird how after Bill Maher defended Rush over the ad boycotting, the GOP targets him.

I'm sure Anne Coulter is conflicted.

I loathe Maher. He's the left's version of Limbaugh. Hell, he may even be the left's version of Michael Savage. He's that bad. But I give him credit because he has to know how much this resembles what he said about Palin a couple years ago. He's just covering his ass with a preemptive comment to avoid looking like a hypocrite.

Local Georgia political cartoon to the rescue!



~I would vote SuperFly for President.

Rush said one bad thing about some girl. That's it. He's no rightist version of Maher.

Keep in mind, Rush is on 15 hours a week for over 20 years. Maher has a Friday night show and that's it.

Rush is rarely vulgar like he was last week, and overall his record isn't bad. Rush and Hugh Hewitt have the best shows. Savage is good too, but he does not really have a background in politics. He is known for complaining about the threat of radical Islam.

What pisses me off is that advertisers avoid Rush and other conservatives yet they flock to Al Sharpton on 1600 AM, after all the things he has said and done. I won't go to Mc Donald's or Kohl's because they advertise on Sharpton's show. White people need to learn to organize boycott's for more than just the War on Christmas.

People listen to Sharpton?

~Call me ignorant, but I didn't even know that fat fuck has a radio show.

Yes. Al Sharpton has a radio show. It's mostly black people calling to parrot what everyone else says. Stupid stuff about Tea Party, Obama, FDNY, etc......

The funniest part of the show is when Al read a live liner for a supplement to raise "testosterun" levels. You see, Al does that on purpose to "keep it real". He's stereotyping his own people.

Well the Tea Party can go fuck themselves for all I care, but you have to give Obama this: After his election, he really made Sharpton and Jackson irrelevant. I consider that a good achievement.

Hell I can't even remember the last time Jackson surfaced. Gone are the SOUTH PARK days when he was the King of Black America.



Off-topic, but I've always noticed how entertainers or politicians of tribes crack jokes at themselves and their audience or at least the popular perception they hold about themselves even if it's a gross stereotype.

(Who were the biggest fans of Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck..." jokes? Rednecks. They may never have helped their rich cousin move the wheels off his home or bought a DVR because wrestling is on while they're at work, but they laugh. I do. And Larry the Cable Guy is a walking talking redneck stereotype, and they eat his shit up too.)

Aaaah, Sundays at Ronnie's house .

Amen to that.

Women's Group Presses Obama on Limbaugh/Maher Double Standard
ABC News
March 8, 2012


After making a point of standing up for women during the Rush Limbaugh controversy, President Obama is taking flak from one corner for not speaking out against "vile misogynist" and liberal Obama supporter Bill Maher.

Maher, a comedian who specializes in politics, is also a $1 million contributor to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC that supports Obama's reelection.

Penny Nance, president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America, said in a letter to White House chief of staff Jack Lew that Obama "needs to publicly disassociate himself from Priorities USA" until it returns Maher's money.

"President Obama cannot put forth the eloquent position he announced on Tuesday, while sending administration officials out to raise money for an organization that not only counts a vile misogynist as its largest single donor, but whose executives actively boast about that vile misogynist's support," Nance wrote in her letter to Lew.

Last month, in an about face, Obama approved support for Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing his campaign, allowing senior White House officials to appear at Priorities fundraisers.

The move also drew a $1 million contribution to the group from Maher, though he is not the group's largest donor as Nance mistakenly noted. (Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg gave the group $2 million last year.)

Nance says Obama and his re-election campaign are advancing a double standard by singling out Limbaugh for criticism over liberal perpetrators of sexist speak. Limbaugh has been taken to task and later apologized for calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" for advocating for free coverage of birth control in employer health plans, which Obama favors.

What did Maher say that has drawn the protest from CWA?

Nance cites instances when Maher, a comedian whose show airs on HBO, reportedly called former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a "dumb twat" and Palin and Rep. Michelle Bachmann "boobs" and "two bimbos," and said of a woman seen breast feeding in public, "don't show me your tits!" The comments were made in a satirical setting, but Limbaugh has said he was joking, too.

"It's never appropriate to degrade women, no matter whose side you're on," said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Neither Maher nor a White House spokesman immediately responded to ABC News' request for comment.

http://news.yahoo.com/womens-group-press...--abc-news.html

I can't stand Maher anymore but the reason he doesn't take the flak Limbaugh does is because most people actually agree that his views (no matter how explicitly expressed they might be) are atleast an attempt at a moral and utilitarian end.

This lady is trying to promote contraception coverage in an effort to prevent the serious health problems that many females (MOTHERS) face years after engaging in unprotected intercourse.

And I could not empathize more. I know ladies who've suffered and died from cancers in the reproductive region, cancers that possibly could have been prevented with better access to contraceptives.

Rush turned it around and tried to make it as though she's a nymphomaniac, looking for a cheap thrill at the expense of the tax payers.

That's why he's a jackass, who needs to take himself and the rest of the tea party extremists out of circulation before they sink the whole damn party.

Looks like Obama is going to have to return Maher's money.

This is fascinating. The advertising exodus from Rush has now gone horizontal and affected his fellow radio show hosts with advertisers not currently wanting to be associated with "controversial" programming.

Overreaction?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203100003

Mediamatters is not a very credible source.

Truth is, "leading national advertisers" (LNA's) have not been on Rush or other talkers for years. There is no mass exodus now. They left years ago.

Is Al Sharpton controversial? To me he is. Yet for some reason he does attract companies like Geico and McDonald's.

So what is really happening is this: If you're a white man with conservative views, advertisers will boycott your show. If you're a black man who was eyeballs deep in the Tawana Brawley case, Duke Lacrosse, and a Harlem firebombing, we'll support you because blacks now have that kind of power.

btw- LNA's never really got behind Rush. That's why I say there is no mass exodus. His show has always been gold ads and other 1-800 crap.

When I talk about Sharpton I am referring to his show on 1600 AM in NYC. I won't go to Kohl's because they are on his show.

You know Vinny, I've read most of your posts since you joined the Board recently. In those posts, race seems to be one of your important motivations for the words you use. Why is that? Despite the wide variety of Board member characteristics, I would have to struggle to remember any of their posts that seemed to have such a racial tone to them as your's do.

Maher is a comedian who has a foul mouth, no sponsors, and does not attack "private" perons in the First Amendment sense.
There is no comparison between him and Rushbo.

What have I said in particular that bothers you?

He attacked Joe The Plumber and attacks the Tea Party.

There is a comparison. Both are political commentators.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF20QT8agec

NJ Governor Chris Christy also insulted a law student last week.



The fat fuck (Christy) should have his mouth welded shut.

Agreed, SC. His popularity will never extend beyond his New Jersey conservative base. The guy is a loudmouth and a boor.

That a man who lives in the public eye cares so little about his weight and appearance speaks volumes.

OMG! I heard about it but didn't watch the clip til just now. What did the kid do to deserve to be called an idiot?

And the right are itching for this guy to run for President?? You gotta be kidding me right?


TIS

He has too much baggage, Tis. And like I've posted before, he's just too fat .

Joe the Plumber isn't even a Plumber, but he is a ublic figure.
The Tea Party is a group of people who are also a public figure thus subject to ridicule more than a privtes figure....and when did Maher say he wanted to see a sex tape of either of these?

And Sandra Fluke is a public figure for testifying on behalf of the Democrats. If Joe the Plumber is fair game, so is Sandra Fluke.

Yes, but since when is calling someone a slut and a prostitute and demanding that they appear in sex videos considered "fair game"? It's not. It's a disgusting way to treat a fellow human being.

Rush went too far calling her a slut.

But it was OK to demand sex tapes? Or call anyone who demands insurance payment of birth control a prostitute?

What about men who have insurance coverage for Viagra or any other ED med? Is that not being paid for sex? How is it different?

I really don't have much of an opinion on weather or not health insurance should pay for the pill or Viagra. It's not something I ever gave much thought to.

So, you just joined this discussion to bring up race and your opinions on Al Sharpton, the FDNY, etc., but not comment on the topic at hand?

Huh? There is a lot of thread drift here, including talk of Maher, Fox News, and other issues.

I commented on the topic at hand several times, by stating that Rush was wrong to call this girl a "slut".

No, you mentioned it ONCE in the post above. You did, however, comment several times about the racial makeup of the FDNY, about Al Sharpton's sponsors, Bill Maher, Joe the Plumber and Sandra Fluke being public figures and, therefore, fair game, but there were definitely NOT several occasions where you stated that Rush Limbaugh was wrong.

Thanks for stalking me.

I responded directly to Lilo by explaining that the GOP is not responsible b/c Rush is not an elected GOP official. So I responded directed to the topic. Any other examples I brought up, like Al Sharpton who is a radio host like Rush, are related to the topic-controversial radio hosts.

Believe me, I have better things to do than stalk you. I simply went back to look at your posts in this topic since you posted that "several times" you stated that Rush was wrong. Unless you are under the impression that "several" means one, you did no such thing. Instead, you used this topic as a way to post what I consider borderline racist remarks. And when I say borderline, that border is razor-thin.

I didn't come close to making a racist remark. Not even close.

Lilo brought up the GOP and Rush and I responded accordingly by saying that Rush is not an elected official and the GOP has no obligation to respond.

Please show me where I said a racist comment.

This is completely off-topic, so this will be my last comment on this. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has noticed, since I believe Olivant made a comment, as did Lilo regarding the material in your posts. You are very careful about coming very, very close to the line without QUITE crossing over, although you come perilously close. Enough said. Back on topic.

Rush is still a pig.

So you need the emotional support of Olivant? Is that how you measure your self-worth?

This is a political thread and I let my positions be known. I had every right to bring up radio show host Al Sharpton as a comparison to Rush. It's a fair comparison.

OK, you two... time for a chill pill.

Babe and I heartily disagree about abortion, but she is right on the mark when it comes to characterizing some of your posts as at or approaching the racial content edge.

By the way, the Supreme Court's decision regarding the Ricci case (New Haven firefighters) was based on a disparate impact claim under Title VII. New Haven threw out the promotional exams because they feared a disparate impact lawsuit. Such a fear is recognized by the courts as legitimate. What the Supreme Court opined was that the basis for New Haven's fear did not reach the threshhold required to sanction its action.

OT but I'm pretty sure there's some anti redneck or whatever rhetoric on these boards as well, as if all racists are in the South. I'm thinking we forget the race riots in the 1940s and 1960s in Detroit.
Rochester 1964
New York 1964
Jersey City, N.J.-1964
Patterson, N.J.-1964
Chicago, Ill.-1964
Watts, LA,Calf. 1968

It was a tense time everywhere.

Anyway, affirmative action is what I recall SV comparing segregation to. While I do think AA is justified, it's certainly not solely predicated on race, and it's hard not to empathize with a young white-male college grad. who gets passed over in the workforce to someone with less education simply because they're minority, female, or aged.

It was a great day in America when Ricci won.

dt what we are dealing with here is women being called deragatory names. So you're basically saying it's ok for Maher to use the words he used to describe Sarah palin & Michelle Bachman. Because their public, but yet it's not ok for Rush to use the words he used to describe sandra Fluke, boy talk about a double standard. By the way since Sandra Fluke testfied before Congress she is no longer private.

For the record I completely disagree with Flukes viewpoint regarding concraceptives. If she or anyone else wishes to have sex it's their responsibility to pay for the contraceptives not some university or the government

I actually agree with you about Maher, Iceman. I can't stand him. What's good for the right should be good for the left. Fair is fair.