Say hello to the correction

You know, markets are self-correcting to some extent, maybe not enough that we don't have to inspect meat or test drugs or set safety standards for airplanes, but maybe enough that dangerous products, unappealing products and frankly annoying things like the lies and propaganda and bigotry that Clear Channel produces and airs on about 600 radio stations in the US aren't doing well in the market any more. Perhaps it's that people are getting tired of the slander and quasi-treasonous, excremental and septic opinions of Rush Limbaugh, or perhaps it's the effect the boycotts, the petitions and various activist campaigns are having on investors.  Booya!

Clear Channel's latest earning report shows even worse declines than they did a year ago.  Sponsors are being deluged with angry invective and over 2,600 companies have pulled their ads.  Say hello to the correction.

Shame, Shame

Remember when anyone like the Dixie Chicks, for instance, or you and I expressed any sense of shame for any actions our country may have taken or not taken: any shame for having elected Caligula Jr. the Warpresident?  Well certainly the great weight of Limbaugh and the fire-farting far right came down on such unfortunates back in the day when expressing pessimism about the Stock Market was evidence of being an "America Hater."  Even peripheral actions like perhaps wanting to publish the names of soldiers killed in the early days of our Shokinaw war in Iraq was disgraceful and shameful because there was the chance someone might use it to express regret for or disapproval of any action of a Republican president, illegal or otherwise.

So shocked I was to hear than ol' rant 'n rage Rush declare yesterday that he was ashamed -- that's right, ashamed of the United States of America.  It's hard to reconcile that with all the loud Limbaughian flatulation when Michelle Obama said that for the first time in her life she was really proud of our country, which allowed speculation that she might ever have thought less of it than she thought of God Almighty or perhaps Allah to some dittoheads.  There's usually no worse offense, nothing closer to  treason than not to gibber in epiphanic ecstasy at any description of  our New Jerusalem, our greatest of all Christian Nations under God and all it ever has done.

But not this time. 

“To be watching all of this, to have my intelligence – all of us – to have our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it is….it just makes me ashamed,” the fat man sang on his afternoon radio program. “Seriously man, here we get worked up over 44 billion dollars — that’s the total amount of money that will not be spent that was scheduled to be spent this year.”

Only $44 billion he said as though we would hardly have a problem if we hadn't and still didn't have the most expensive and protracted war in our history and one which not only didn't pay for itself as promised, but didn't solve any of the problems it was supposed to do.   How many trillions did George spend and refuse to pay for?  Isn't nearly all of that "spending" he wants to cut service on the Commander Guy's extravagance?  Well of course it is, but all that sound and fury could never be as offensive to Rush as making sure that other people don't have to die of things like infected anal cysts or that some kid doesn't have to go to bed as hungry as Rush gets after 10 minutes of not stuffing his fat face. It's shameful that the less than wealthy should presume to do more than ditto him.

“We just keep spending more money. We create more dependency, we get more and more irresponsible one crisis to the next, all of them manufactured. Except for the real crisis that nobody ever addresses — and that is we can't afford it.”

Nobody Rush?  Perhaps not so you could hear over your own sound and fury, but your party hasn't shut up long enough for anyone to pause and ask who decided we could afford the most expensive war we ever had because the magic Tax Fairy would pay for it.  Wasn't that a manufactured crisis that created a real crisis -- the WMD that weren't, the yellowcake hoax?  We couldn't afford it and you told us we could because tax cuts for you would create magic money instead of the predictable debt and crisis that in fact created all that dependence.

 

So,  I'm sorry to insult your intelligence with the truth and sorry to mention that your followers tend to be on the two digit side of the bell curve, but your self serving, self contradictory logorrheic slurry

of never-ending shit is an embarrassment to God and country -- and to me. 

“I've said the same things over and over for 25 years” 

 

said Rush, but of course he said it during the most prosperous period in our history as well and while the debt shrank and the surplus grew. "I just hate slick Willie" he said.  "I mean he just makes me sick."  While employment and wages grew and debt shrank and Lord Rushbaugh and millions of us got rich: while the economy bloomed and peace prevailed; while he screamed about the greatest tax increases in world history.  "Both parties are spreading fear and panic," said Rush who may be afraid that he'll not get this year's Oscar for fear and panic mongering. What else has he ever done?

 

But hey, I wouldn't want to live in a country Limbaugh approved of so I can't say that I'm sorry for his simpering claim to shame.  He's not ashamed of backing Joseph Koney while claiming that Obama was not a Christian, he's not ashamed that none of his prophecies, his apocalyptic warnings  have shown merit.  He's not really ashamed at all. It's just another gambit, another  lachrymose plea for attention, another distraction, another smokescreen to hide his irrelevance, his dependency, his shameful life.

 

Swingin' round the circle

Long before we had Steven Colbert with his espousal of conservative views that reveal trenchantly cynical commentary beneath, we had Petroleum V. Nasby writing in the dialect of the South in praise of the "secessionists" and their northern friends the Copperheads. But it works both ways and the infamous Palm Beach man of the people, Rush Limbaugh is borrowing the technique to express his gratitude to God that we have a man in the White House like Barack Obama.

Such a character as Colbert uses takes strength and skill to maintain, but it's a strength that Rush either doesn't have or doesn't want to have. Like a dog who just can't sit still with the smell of bacon in the air, it didn't take long, yesterday night, for Limbaugh to crack under the strain of decency and honesty and reveal what hunger lies beneath.

"I, me, my, three of the most used words in President Obama's media appearance last night, not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, military adviser, came up with the idea...not one of them... according to Obama, had the ability to understand the need to get DNA. This was Obama's message last night,"

said Limbaugh. I suppose he simply didn't listen to the same speech I heard and perhaps he wrote the script before it even aired, but at any rate even the faux appearance of pleasure at our success in doing away with mass murderer Osama bin Laden was too much of a strain and the cynical, dishonest and slimy hate just had to come out.

No, Obama just couldn't be honest enough to admit that George W. Bush really was responsible for it. Couldn't resist telling us that it would have been better just to carpet bomb Abottabad and perhaps start another trillion dollar war against Andorra. He couldn't even be a man enough to admit being a Muslim and to stop fooling people with his birth certificate. But then what can we expect of a black man and a Democrat?

They call me Mr. President

There's a difference between comedic impersonations and bigoted mockery; between comedy and things that make racists, bullies, mean spirited, angry people laugh. One could invoke the German Schadenfreude; yet the laughter when a clown slips on a banana peel isn't quite the same and isn't as universal as the sound that comes from the man in the white sheet laughing at the humiliation of another man.

Ive seen enough bullies in my day. I've seen some of them confronted and heard the common refrains of "I'm the victim here" and the almost inevitable " didn't you know I was joking?" So I wasn't surprised to hear Glenn Beck whine to Meredith Viera that his detractors didn't have a sense of humor adequate to know that when he advocates beating a public official with a shovel or tells us of the need to shoot Democratic leaders in the head, it's those dumb liberals who are humorless.

For the most part, the law has never found incitement amusing: shouting fire when there isn't one - for laughs. Even those orating innocently about a strike have been punished in America because someone used the occasion to toss a bomb. You don't make bomb jokes in the airport and you don't joke about killing democrats to an audience you know to include deranged and armed enemies of Democrats - even if for no other reason than avoiding making yourself look bad. But looking bad is just what many of these frustrated losers want to do.

But times seem to be changing and that old time evil is bubbling up again, or at least some groups now have enough power to make the clowns take off the blackface and to think twice about anti-Semitic rants and maybe be a bit more circumspect before going after Homosexuals Females and all the other pet victims of the Right.

Mexicans? Chinese? Well they are still targets of opportunity for those willing to descend that far. Some comedians don't realize they're being offensive to people who don't deserve it, some of them don't care as long as they get an audience and others couldn't get a job unless it was entertaining bigots. So if Margaret Cho makes jokes about her Korean family, we don't cringe - unless we are her relatives. When Michael Richards goes on an N-word binge we question his sense of decency -- to say the least.

Watching Dennis Leary's charity benefit the other day, I was appalled at his crude attempt to make fun of the world's most widely spoken language. No, not the real difficulties of speaking, it but with facial contortions and weird sounds that didn't seem funny or sound anything like Chinese to one familiar with the language. Bad taste I think, and enough to alienate a lot of people to the objectives of his charity.


And then there's Limbaugh.

What is an American president called when he visits China? They call him Mr. President. He's only called a Marxist tyrant by detritus like Limbaugh and the lumps of fecal matter that follow in his wake. We employ a host of people to promote American interests, to show the world our best face and we have this inflated rubber gasbag mooning them.

What is Chinese President Hu Jintao called when he's a guest here? The "Chicom Dictator " says Rush. "Ching chong, ching chong, chong" mocks the flatulent Palm Beach Bastard Billionaire, who makes a living lowering the estimation of my country in the eyes of the world. Condescending, contemptuous and contemptible: "Ching chong, ching chong, chong"

No, Presidents from Nixon onward have been treated well in China, it's only in the sewers of the American Right that President Obama is called a Marxist tyrant by detritus like Limbaugh and the lumps of fecal matter that follow in his wake. We employ a host of people to promote American interests, to show the world our best face to induce them to trust our intentions and yet we have this inflated rubber gasbag mooning them while his adolescent friends laugh and mock.

Of course he knows what he's doing, and of course he doesn't care if he puts a white sheet on Uncle Sam and confirms the belief of billions that we are a nation of snarling pirates who don't deserve respect or trust or cooperation. He'll keep doing it as long as we let him, support him, laugh at him, watch him and patronize his unworthy, unscrupulous and unAmerican sponsors.

Consider the source

So how long did you think it would take? Actually I'm surprised that Chairman Rush took so long to blame the oil rig disaster on "hardcore environmentalist wackos." He couldn't have been waiting for some evidence before making accusations of murder and terrorism since there hasn't been any and he's never let that bother him before. Besides he isn't actually making any accusations in the first place:

"I'm just, I'm just noting the timing here."

It happened on Earth Day of course. It's always so easy to say "case closed" when there isn't any case so I won't even hint that Halliburton, the recipient of unholy amounts of government subsidies, grants and contracts and with strong ties to Dick Cheney is handling the capping of the well. I'll just note who's getting rich from it.

It didn't take long either, for the "government can't be trusted" set to pledge their trust to the Arizona police never to define their "reasonable suspicion" in a way that lets them stop and harass American citizens of Hispanic origin or Hispanics with legal work papers. They don't have to worry at all, though they should be sure to have witnesses standing by, to never go out of the house without proof of citizenship and to be very, very polite to Sheriff Arpaio when he demands they stand and deliver.

There's simply no reason to worry about abuse except that the recently signed bill seems to have been drafted by Kris Kobach who is a lawyer from the Federation for American Immigration Reform , which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as an anti-immigrant hate group since 2007 and who was former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s top immigration adviser. Hey, I'm not suggesting anything, but Ashcroft isn't known for respecting the niceties of Constitutional law in matters concerning the Bill of Rights. So maybe it's constitutional, maybe it's not, maybe it's going to be hell for Hispanics in Arizona, maybe not, but I'll simply consider the source.

Escape from New York

I'd call it the house that hate built, or the penthouse more accurately. It's one of Rush Limbaugh's abodes, on 5th avenue in New York with spectacular views across Central Park and a paneled Library. It has frescoes on the ceilings, antique furniture and a few sets of leather bound matched sets of books that look like they were bought by the yard rather than for the content. Perhaps there's a gilt edged Ayn Rand volume or two.

It's not that Rush really wants to move, but increasing real estate taxes are -- well, just so Marxist that it's, you know, a matter of principal. It's enough that he tips the doorman on Christmas and he shouldn't have to be taxed like some ordinary peasant.

I supposed he'll have to rough it at his obscenely huge oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, as cold as it is these days (it has nothing to do with climate change) in Florida. It has it's own charms and on a good day, you can plink at the Haitians floating offshore on styrofoam rafts.

At fourteen million bucks plus tax, it's just waiting for some Trotskyite Castro sympathizer to move in and share the wealth with those Liberal New Yorkers. I'd offer him no more than twelve though. It's a buyers market now that Obama caused the housing bubble and the credit crunch.

Let them die - not one more dollar!

I've lived in declared disaster areas several times and have been involved in emergency communications and food distribution during three category 2 hurricanes in the last 5 years alone and of course, the destruction of property, the loss of power for months is no fun, but to compare any of that with what's going on in Haiti right at this moment shows the inadequacy of the word disaster. In Haiti, the lives of almost all have been a disaster all along and they are a living hell for the lucky survivors.

The first I heard about the earthquake in Haiti was a communication from the ARRL, which represents Amateur Radio in the US, asking us to keep certain emergency frequencies open and to listen for any communications coming out of Haiti. I heard nothing myself, although the Caribbean is at my doorstep. There was nothing but background noise on 14,300 Mhz -- the Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net (IATN) until the Rev John Henault, HH6JH, made contact late Wednesday morning. He said that he was safe, but had no power and no phone service. He was operating on battery power and hoping to get a generator running later in the day so he could report on conditions.

It's been reported that the UN peacekeeping force headquarters building has collapsed and may have killed everyone inside including the UN envoy. About 150 U.N. staff members remain unaccounted for and 22 are confirmed dead.

It may be a while before any final death toll can be determined. In a country of such massive poverty people will continue to succumb to disease, starvation and dehydration, but it will, no doubt be a very large number. France has airplanes on the way and the US has arrived and secured the airport so that emergency aid can land safely. President Obama has pledged $100 million in relief and has assured what remains of the Haitian people that they will not be forgotten. The Red Cross is actively soliciting funds with telethons and operators are standing by as you read this.

Rush Limbaugh wasted no time weighing in on the suffering of millions, on the slow, sordid, lonely deaths of countless children, on the agony of those crushed by fallen buildings:

"This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community--in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there."

Yes, Rush is a heavyweight in more than one way. Limbaugh, who lives in barely imaginable luxury simply doesn't want another damned thing done for those ungrateful "light-skinned and dark-skinned" people, dying of thirst, hunger and disease. As to private donations to the Red Cross? Forget it!

"we've already donated to Haiti--it's called the U.S. income tax."

Of course Rush cares about some people, particularly when he can use their deaths to defame anything he defines as liberal: things other people call decency or charity, or humanity, or compassion. We're supposed to be outraged in perpetuity at the death of any American citizen at the hands of Muslims - White citizens preferred of course, but Rush doesn't give a damn or a dollar for anyone else.

Remember that the next time you listen to him, the next time you think it's so cute how he lampoons his shoddy straw men. Remember the next time you patronize his sponsors. This is the man who looks into the eyes of a bereaved mother, a dying child and says "screw you and screw anyone who gives a damn."

Rush lives

Whatever the cause of Rush Limbaugh's chest pains, they haven't been as fatal as some have reported but whether or not angina is involved, we can be sure they weren't pangs of conscience. His web site thanks us for our prayers ( if only he could hear mine) and is, as always, jam packed and bloated with fear mongering, dire predictions and apocalyptic warnings that if we don't "fight like hell" our country will be changed forever. Let's hope.

I recently read that only about 5% of those admitted to hospitals with chest pains die within a year, so one important and very needed change is probably not going to happen -- all the more so since most billionaires can not only afford health insurance but can afford to do without it. If you or I had rendered ourselves uninsurable through a lifetime of belly bustin' burgers, cigars, uppers, downers, pain killers and beer we might have a rather different experience and a bit less cause for optimism.

Yes, we have to fight like hell to stop this "buffoonery" says Rush about Bob Menendez' call to set aside ideology, turn off Limbaugh and pass the legislation that most Americans want. But Congress is ignoring the will of the people -- or at least the minority of the people he represents, says Rush. Public health insurance will change America forever -- forever! Government will "take over" health care just the way it took over all those plans you made for retirement. ( huh?)
Just the way Veteran's benefits took over - well whatever they took over and medicare helped keep exploding profits from eating up every last dime retired people have set aside.

It's a tenet of Buddhism, and a nice bit of wisdom, that change is constant and suffering is universal when we refuse to accept it. It's too bad in this case that Rush's refusal to let go of failed 19th century ideas will cause more suffering for everyone else than it will for him. We have been changing from the outset in terms of making the US a better place to live for more of its people and Rush has been a major clot in the artery of truth and justice and decency.

No, I'm not going to descend to his level and wish him an immediate death, in fact I hope he lives long enough to see that not one dire thing he has predicted has materialized and that he's been pretty much wrong about every thing he's said -- and until that happens, I hope those pains continue to hurt like hell.

Rush's tale

A Tale of Two Cities, The Miller's Tale, a tale told by an idiot - it doesn't matter in the great game of Pin the Tale on Obama. Any tale will do. Your host today is Rush Limbaugh and he's here to tell us that a tale of someone getting beat up on a school bus can be pinned on US President Barak Obama. What? You want a reason? Well two black kids beat up on a white kid for some undetermined reason and because nature abhors a reason vacuum, the bell rings and we pin the tale on Obama!

That means of course that this incident, because there doesn't seem to be evidence of it being race-related, instantly goes on to round two where it becomes the model for the future Where Barak Obama individually directs the actions of all high school students ( remember the speech?)

"In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering,"

said Rush yesterday. In other words, the fact of a biracial president guarantees that the "darkies" will no longer frolic gaily about the plantation as God and the GOP intends and as Rush proves, have already formed an American Mau Mau movement to invade the inner sanctum of the white race, rape our women and drive the streets of Palm Beach in Escalades with that terrible racist music blaring while Rush is trying to sleep.

That's right - the white kids get beat up - all of them and all of the black kids will cheer and because this has never, ever happened before when the White House was really white, it's Obama's fault, QED.

Tune in tomorrow when Rush will explain to us that all the mockery he gets from those miserable liberals proves that everything he says is correct.

Limbaugh's Lament

My first thought was, he lied in every word

-Robt. Browning-

When the man behind the curtain speaks, Republicans listen. Others become speechless. It's all too predictable that Limbaugh would support Joe Wilson's outburst and not surprising that he claims to have been squealing "you lie" himself throughout the entirety of President Obama's health care speech.

"He is lying, President Obama is. From the moment he opens his mouth until he ends the speech"

he grunted on his radio show yesterday. Of course and as usual, no discussion of how or about what he actually lied ensued. Boss Hog said he lied, that's enough and Wilson never should have apologized and his colleagues shouldn't have pressured him to do so.

It reminds me of the first time I heard his radio show. I was driving through Georgia, in the days before satellite radio and I decided to give him a minute to see what he was about.

[Rush] "I mean, the guy (President Clinton) just makes me sick"

[caller 1] "Ditto Rush! I see him and I want to vomit"

[caller 2] "Ditto, ditto - oh ditto ? Rush everything about him is disgusting. He makes me sick, sick!"

The call and response chorus went on and on until I turned it off and I've only heard him a couple of other times in all these years - I mean he makes me sick, but I can usually tell you why without inventing things.

That no plan offered by anyone provides health insurance for illegal residents of the US isn't hard to determine, but Rush isn't about facts, he's about emotions; hate for the most part. It's easy for him to say that Obama is plotting

"to completely tear down the institutions and traditions that have made this country great."

It's impossible however, to make a case for that without lying. In fact his attempts to preserve some of those institutions are the basis for other Limbaugh anger crusades. I'm at a loss to understand what American institutions made America great and are now in peril from the concept of making insurance available to everyone, unless stupidity, dishonesty and perhaps insanity are institutions. I'm at a loss to understand just how

SEC. 246. NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS.
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

Means the opposite of what it says without subscribing to Limbaughian logic. In fact it proves that Rush is a liar, something all to easy to do, but one thing Rush knows is that the more absurd and preposterous the claim the less effective is the irrefutable proof of its falsity. Rush knows and Rush profits and Rush keeps on lying and Republicans keep on following in his wake, terrified to disobey. It's not so much that he makes me sick but that he is the sickness.

What we have here is a failure

Sarah Palin says Obama is driving the country toward Socialism, although she's not exactly sure what that is or how he's doing it.

"We’re borrowing more to spend more ... it defies any sensible economic policy that any of us ever learned through college"

said she to Insanity Hannity although that's been the main thrust of GOP economic policy since Reagan. Never mind that she didn't actually study economics in her long, picaresque romp through a series of fourth rate community colleges and hasn't any real idea of who owns what part of American industry. If she did, perhaps the failed VP candidate, failed beauty queen and desultory student would have to blush about Alaska's state ownership of oil and gas resources and her failure to bring capitalism to her state.

But that's OK. Former Speaker of the House and thoroughly dispicable human being Newt Gingrich says that whatever Obama may be driving us toward, President Barack Obama’s plan to fix the economy has “already failed” and “bowing to the Saudi King is not an energy policy.” Of course not, and Obama would agree. Playing basketball after hours isn't either, but neither is it supposed to be, any more than being a serial adulterer like Newt is a guarantee he means what he says. Of course none of us will get the chance to ask him whether Cheney's collusion with oil magnates about raising the price of oil is an energy policy either, but it helps that whatever Obama has been falsely accused of doing, he's failed to do it.

Rush Limbaugh isn't ready to call Sonia Sotomayor a failure yet, but he hopes she will be. Racist and hack yes, he's ready to say that, but as he does with our president and our nation, he hopes for a good, solid failure. And besides, of course, as with Michael J. Fox's Parkenson's disease, Ms. Sotomayor's recent broken ankle is certainly evidence of lack of character.

“Now, the question is, would a white, male judge have fractured his ankle in the same circumstances?”

No, actually the question is whether Rush can say anything at all without his racism and misogyny creeping through, but we won't embarrass him by asking it, not while he's back on the Vikes and babbling.

Drug addicted, draft dodging Limbaugh however, hardly compares with Gordon Liddy, the convicted felon/conservative radio host who thought it important to speculate as to whether the judge's menstrual cycle will interfere with her judgment.

"Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate,"

Liddy said in a conservative fashion.

"That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

Yes, Mr. Liddy, and the Lord knows that would be bad regardless of which Lord you mean, just like conspiring to overthrow democracy in the US and bragging about it -- which seems to be your main "conservative" credential.

Yes, 4 months is soon enough to talk about failure and face it -- who is more qualified to talk about failure than the Republicans?

Just what it looks like

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

-Sigmund Freud (attributed)-

Sometimes not

"So I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate."

said Rush the other day at the President's Club Dinner, to appreciative guests like Justice Clarence Thomas, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and other self-satisfied plutocrats who thought it was funny that Clear Channel has had to lay off 12% of its work force while Rush has a $400 million dollar contract with them. Business for Rush has never been better and he's never had a better time either with his 51,000 square foot Palm Beach palace on the ocean, his $54 million dollar private jet and his "populist" radio program where he can tell the boys down at the corner bar why the Liberals are out to get them and then fly off to have dinner with the other plutocrats smoking cigars and laughing their heads off at his jokes about homeless children sleeping under bridges.

That's right Doktor Freud, sometimes it's a cigar, sometimes it's not, but with Rush it's always a way of saying "I've got mine and f*ck you!"

Don't Rush me

Thinking back to the dear dead days of Father Coughlin and the childhood of right wing hate radio, it seems like neither active opposition nor the deliberate ignoring of their brand of theater is as effective as allowing their own success to put them outside the pale of justification for or acceptance of their propaganda.Coughlin whose bigotry and anti-Semitism trapped him when Hitler became an enemy, had his network taken away after he became an embarrassment to the Church and indeed to the country.

Nobody outside of the lunatic fringe can really, if they are honest, think Rush Limbaugh's bombast has been anything other than full support for all that's torpedoed America, from his apparent acceptance of torture, to his steadfast denial of the growing sickness of our economy; from denying the dishonest origins of the Iraq war to the dishonest, scabrous, sleazy and relentless attacks on those who opposed the outrages of the George Bush presidency. He has become identified with the vicious kind of campaign that helped sink thePalin /McCain candidacy by making Obama seem all the more a man of integrity. I don't think I'm being fatuously optimistic to think he may go down with the ship he helped sink.

"I think a lot of people like to hear what he’s saying but I think it’s also a little bit polarizing and confrontational"

said Ron Paul in an uncharacteristic understatement during a telephone interview with CNN's John Roberts this morning.

" I guess the Democrats think its to their advantage if he’s leading the charge.”

I would add that it's to the world's advantage, but that's just my opinion. If I were a Republican, even a more characteristic Republican than Paul, like Michael Steele for instance, who said on CNN Saturday:

“Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes it’s incendiary, yes it’s ugly.”

I would have to agree that it sure as hell is and yes, his dirty, nasty, mean spirited and unencumbered by honesty rhetoric is just the kind of thing to associate him with the party people rightly associate with bringing down a prosperous economy, putting our country in danger and protecting crooks and tyrants in their quest to make a mockery of liberty and the institutions that protect it.

"some of us would like to see an approach that would emphasize personal liberties, civil liberties, looking at the drug war… It’s really the old Republican Party because even Limbaugh was a big supporter of Bush so hedoesn’t have anything new either when it comes to bringing our troops home, not expanding the war in Afghanistan."

said Congressman Paul. Some of us of course have been saying that for a number of years -- Democrats to be specific -- and we do remember being called traitors for agreeing with what the "new" GOP now seems to be trying to be seen saying. We remember being called traitors, loonies, dementia sufferers, Marxists and a long list of epithets of unrestrained hyperbole by Limbaugh and his fellow polemicists.

Although as a habitual Democrat, I wouldn't mind seeing Limbaugh go down with his leaky, worm eaten ship of shame, it would be far better for us all if there really were a new Republican Party that really did believe a bit more along Libertarian lines and particularly if it were led by someone who is capable of maintaining a dialog rather than hiding larcenous demagoguery behind a smokescreen of war and pretended patriotism. So far no one but Mr. Paul comes to mind.

Cross posted from The Swash Zone

I hope he fails

I've called him all kinds of names, from Limpboy to liar to Rush the magic blowhard. This time Rush Limbaugh has left me at a loss for a proper pejorative. I guess that puts me in the drivers seat as a "driveby journalist" but when I listen to him this time, listen to him saying he hopes Barak Obama fails as president, hopes the "liberalism" he represents fails and pretends it's all about the kinds of people Obama appoints, the decisions he makes, I can only descend into obscenity.

He blames Obama, he says, for a policy that includes massive bailouts and the nationalization of the private sector. I shouldn't have to point out the distortion or the irony. The "Liberals" he says, were out to get Bush even before Bush ruined the world so it's fair, even though Bush and his fake war were supported massively by such straw men as the New York Times, even though the economic policies Rush supports have failed consistently for 30 years.

Hoping Obama succeeds is "affirmative action," it's "supporting incompetence," it's advocating "socialism." He's the "last man standing" says he, but it's all about a better America for his nieces and nephews. I wish he were the last man standing -- against the wall, because if Obama fails to undo what people like Rush and the pirates and buccaneers he supports have done, the country will only be worth living in for the heirs of plutocratic bloviators and the world will be in ruins. If Obama fails, we all fail.

Was anyone ever so thoroughly dishonest, completely reprehensible? Perhaps yes. Did anyone ever make so much money at it, maybe not. Behold the man who hopes you lose your job and your home because it offends his Reaganoid ideology. Here's the man who avoided the draft because his anus was sore, here's the man who tries to pin a drug charge on his housekeeper. Here's his 51,000 square foot home on the Atlantic ocean in Palm beach where he sits in the sun and complains about being a victim. You bought it for him, because you hate America, because you hate justice, because you're a coward, because you think bigotry is cute, because you're afraid someone will pull the rug out from under your miserable life if you don't side with the people who kidnapped America and held it for ransom.

Our country faces a world economic crisis as dangerous as anything we have faced. You and I are more likely to lose everything we have than at any time in the last 80 years; Rush isn't. In fact the worse it gets, and as he says, he hopes it will, the more material he has and the more support he will get from those who insist we need more of what Reagan and the two Bush's gave us.

If Obama succeeds, if we succeed in turning around the economy, stopping the biggest incursions on personal liberty in our history and in extricating ourselves from the war Bush started for his own reasons, Limbaugh will become as embarrassing and repugnant as the equally popular Father Coughlin did in the 1930's when it became obvious that his policies were indistinguishable from Hitler's. It can happen. We can be rid of him. Yes we can.

Light at heart

“Paul Shanklin is a long-time friend, and I think that RNC members have the good humor and good sense to recognize that his songs for the Rush Limbaugh show are light-hearted political parodies,”

said "Chip" Saltsman. I'm sure that many of them would see "Barak the Magic Negro" as hilarious, that many of them would see Rush Limbaugh as a funny man.

“Please enjoy the enclosed CD by my friend Paul Shanklin of the Rush Limbaugh Show”

read the note RNC candidate "Chip" attached to the CD containing 41 tracks of "light-hearted political parodies" and distributed as a message of Christmas cheer to Republican National Committee members. Republicans love Christmas and all it's religious meanings, you know. It's titled "We hate the USA." These light hearted bozos of course can't be accused of hating the USA, they just think most of the people in it are comical Poles, Jews, Liberals, homos, Mexican illegals, murderous Muslims, and of course Negros, any of whom can be stereotyped, ridiculed and condescended to over Scotch and sodas at the good old boy's club where loving America's most obnoxious traditions is as de regeur as a good old black-face minstrel show or lunch at the Coon Chicken Inn.

Rush Limbaugh, you know, the guy who avoided the draft because of an anal infection and who let his housekeeper take the fall for his drug addiction and who thinks it's "light-hearted" to compare a homely self conscious adolescent girl with a dog on national TV, predicted a while back that featuring the song on his radio program would foster accusations of racism. That wasn't hard to predict seeing that it is racism of the most arrogant sort. But no, Chip and Rush and the rest of the country club comedians haven't broken any laws. It's possible that they truly don't see anything wrong in being the douche bags they are and will go to their graves thinking they've been put-upon by moral censors and do-gooders and humorless liberals and there's little we can do about it other than to hope the event comes soon.

Limbaugh and the "little black boy man-child"

Rush Limbaugh seems finally to have responded to criticism of his indefensible attack on Elizabeth Edwards's sexual practices and prolix propensities.

"You can't hit the girl"

he laments, with a gratuitous dig at Feminism and Hillary Clinton. Sure you can Rush, and you'll hit anyone and then act like you've been unfairly treated by the nasty "Liberals" who call you an immoral, dishonest and reprehensible bastard for having been all those things for so long.

His latest gambit is to complain that we're complaining that Obama is being attacked and we're complaining because of course, he is above criticism. I would commend him for this inventiveness, but it seems to come so easily to him that I can't give him any credit. Of course nobody is putting Obama on a pedestal, nobody is treating him like a Messiah, that's only the game the Limp Boy is playing because the man is obviously a better leader, more intelligent and better able to express coherent thoughts and policies. Sorry to disappoint you Rushbag, I just think Obama is better, not that he's Jesus Christ and Elvis rolled into one.

"you can't criticize the little black man-child.

You just can't do it, 'cause it's just not right, It's not fair. He's such a victim"

whines Rush, posing as a victim.

Sure you can Rush. It's really only you pretending that anyone is above criticism. It's really only you pretending that our revulsion at your bigotry, your limitless amorality and your viciousness toward anyone you feel like being vicious toward justifies it all. Do you think anyone doesn't read "man-child" as your snickering replacement for Boy? Criticism of a political candidate is always fair, but libel, slander and all the other fictions you excrete for the benefit of your fatuous and furious followers is not fair. Undermining truth and justice and decency isn't fair and that's just the way you make your $38 million a year. If you had any real concern for the United States of America you'd fill your pockets with bricks and start wading East from your magnificent beachfront property until you drown.

Low, low Limbaugh

I was going to begin by asking what it might take to finally discredit Rush Limbaugh, but perhaps that's not a question any sane person could answer. His personal life is so full of reprehensible behavior, his professional life is so full of reprehensible and irresponsible slurs, misrepresentations and fabrications that nobody not predisposed to irrational hatred could possible see him as a reliable commentator -- and yet he remains wildly popular and highly paid. The answer, I'm afraid, is that nothing can discredit a liar amongst a population of liars, bigots, fools, idiots and madmen. That's a rather large population, it would seem.

None the less the statements he makes as he bounces up and down on his prodigious rump would stun anyone with a minimum of decency and honesty. He latest, as you may have heard is to defame Elizabeth Edwards for causing her husband to cheat on her. Who, he implies, would want an intelligent woman who is capable of expressing her opinion?

"It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk."

Giggles the gelatinous Limbaugh. But it just seems to me that's exactly what Rush's mouth does as he fellates the limp wits at the bottom of America's barrel. It seems that way to Keith Olbermann too. Of course the Republican Right dislikes Olbermann and would portray him as some sort of irresponsible radical, but so far I haven't seen one of them risk seeming to back Limbaugh by criticizing his indefensible and disgusting performance.

What about it Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin -- are you listening?

Phony soldiers

Of course Rush "phony soldier" Limbaugh supports the troops. Congress would love to congratulate him for it because they both agree that our fighting men and women need to keep fighting and shut up instead of embarrassing the people who are tirelessly supporting them. I had it pointed out to me by readers of my recent post about Rush and his accusation of phoniness against troops that don't think we're conducting God's own war the way God himself would conduct it, that Rush was only talking about those still in boot camp that were afraid to go and perhaps just signed on for the good pay and benefits.

Never mind the fellow who took a piece of shrapnel in the head - he's just like a suicide bomber: a terrorist sent by the Democrats, but what about the Minnesota National Guard soldiers sent home after 22 months of hell and exactly 24 hours short of receiving the educational benefits they would have been entitled to? Perhaps the appearance of these heavily armed 2600 men on Rush's $26,000,000 ocean view front lawn in beautiful West Palm Beach would give him the opportunity to call each and every one a phony, a terrorist. Perhaps he could explain why he gets massive tax cuts while they get shit - and support, of course. You can't forget about his tireless support.

Yes sir, Congress and Balloon Butt Limbaugh will be speaking up any minute now to express their legendary support - just like the support they showed for keeping them there for extended tours and short leave so as not to "disgrace" them and "embolden" alqaedainiraq. Any time now.

Sometimes I ruminate about how small the offenses of the British government were that caused the American revolution when compared to the outrages of our own time. Perhaps there never would have been a revolution if Washington had to contend with the likes of our current overlords.

Shameless

If anyone entertained notions that the the constant exposure of Republican transgressions and failures would in any way weaken support for them or their champions or would generate contrition in their ranks, they've long since been converted to militant cynics or émigrés to some more rational realm. If anyone thought Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter could be embarrassed by their overt support for a criminal empire or being seen to attack fundamental American values and institutions or even American heroes, they should by now be treasuring their right to keep and bear arms and burying the valuables in the back yard.

Did you really think that billionaire balloon-butt blowhard, who avoided service because of an infected asshole would feel shame for insulting troops who through experiencing war know a bit more about it than he? Of course not, his response is to insult them further. Hell no, he isn't going to call that wounded soldier a phony to his face, he's going to sit on his pus-oozing ass and insult him again and the network that airs him will continue to support him and we will continue to pay to have his slime shipped overseas to our troops and we will pay to have our Congressional whores praise him for his patriotism.

Even Orwell with a toothache couldn't have invented such a scenario nor envisioned the hellacious harpy who hangs around Limbaugh like a bad smell. Who in all of history ever imagined that Ann Coulter could argue against allowing Women to vote? Sure, it's as hyperbolic as anything she writes or says to promote yet another one of her insanely fascist screeds, but her consistent insistence that she and her familiars are brilliant thinkers and the rest of the world from Einstein to Jesus Christ are a bunch of liberal weeny faggots, seems real enough to earn her a straight jacket if not an appointment to a high level security job in Burma.

Coulter, when she's not busily licking the puss off Limbaugh's anal sores, likes to compare Democrats and in fact anyone not promoting wars of aggression for the sake of war and aggression, to women -- or in her kinder moments to homosexuals. It's women looking for handouts, you see who elect Democrats says she:

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat [sic] president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women."

Of course it wasn't women who elected two felons to office by a landslide in 1972, it was Republicans; Republicans who love war, profit from war, hate freedom and profit from suppressing it. Perhaps women are after all, a bit more opposed to syphoning off incomprehensibly huge sums to benefit companies like Blackwater and Halliburton with relationships to the administration so close it's almost sexual. Perhaps women are a bit more opposed to killing children by the tens and hundreds of thousands to promote a more friendly business atmosphere in some other country, but only a bit. The simpering sisters for safety and security did their part to put the shiftless shitweasel who used his father's presidency to sell worthless Enron stock, sell energy deals to the Taliban and get interest free loans and handouts for his failed businesses from the bin Laden family, into office.

Have no doubt, we don't have a say in what happens any more and by "we" I mean the private citizens. Smiling Christian-face fascists like Mark Mays, CEO of Clear Channel who broadcast Limbaugh over our airwaves through 1200 outlets is as supportive of Mr. Butt-boils as he can be because he supports the truth and it doesn't matter how many letters he gets from whomever sends them - the gravy train will roll on. it's not our truth, not our country, not our radio spectrum, it's his. It's not our country. It belongs to clean cut Jesus jabberers like Erik Prince who has made billions from Iraq who thinks he's doing the Lord's work by soldiering for a fortune - our fortune, although if you ask him to tell us how much he's ripping us off for, he'll all but tell you to Fuck off because it's "private" which means that our money is his private property. The Lord works in mysterious ways, after all, and the Lord has granted Blackwater immunity from all law as effectively as ever the Devil did. So go ahead and get the FBI to investigate. They'll have Blackwater mercenaries standing guard for the Lord just in case the law or the secular government gets in the way. You can't trust the military or the cops any more - some of them are women and Democrats, I hear.

Cross posted to The Impolitic

Puff the magic Dragon

Is it a coating of non-stick Teflon that keeps things from sticking to Rollicking Rush Limbaugh, or is it just ordinary slime he's covered with? Perhaps, if he bothers to explain himself at all, he will tell us that public figures like Barak Obama are fair game for race baiting while college girls are not, but I'm waiting to see the kind of reaction we got to Imus' comment. I'm waiting in fact to hear any update on the story that appeared in Crooks and Liars last Friday much less the racist barb he tossed at the Illinois Senator last January. It may be a long wait.

Rush playing "Barak the magic Negro" to the tune of the silly Peter Paul and Mary song from the 60's on his radio show is only the latest in a career of ugliness, pettyness, maliciousness and malignant bullying that should have ended years ago. Whether it's blatant racism or whether it's calling an adolescent girl a dog on nationwide TV, there have been too many incidents egregious enough to have him fired and black listed -- and yet here he is, smelly phallic cigar in his fat mouth, stinking up the pristine Florida air and the public airwaves.

It's time the media stops hiding behind a disclaimer and fires the bastard.

Cross posted at The Reaction