Limbaugh: "We shouldn't remind people on welfare when the election is"

This is the most powerful man in the Republican party. Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh accuses Obama of waging war on traditional marriage

How much of an idiot do his followers have to be to accept anything that he has to say about marriage? For a guy who has burned through three marriages and is on his fourth, maybe he ought to be more concerned about his own war on traditional marriage.

MediaMatters has more about the same guy who ranted about illegal drugs but was doctor shopping to illegally purchase prescription drugs.

Rush Limbaugh attacked President Obama today over his support for marriage equality, accusing Obama of leading a "war on traditional marriage" and the Catholic Church while accusing same-sex marriage supporters of wanting "to corrupt the institution." However, polls show that public support for same-sex marriage has been trending upwards over the past several years, including in the Catholic community.

Read the rest of this post...

How Limbaugh and Beck's propaganda works

I am just completing some interior renovations and about to start some exterior work and so was talking to a couple of contractors. The first told me a conspiracy theory a friend of a friend had told him from the Rush Limbaugh show, whereby the government was alleged to be requiring spy cameras in every HD TV set. I have not been able to track down what Limbaugh might have said to have triggered this claim, but the 'Chinese whispers' effect is instrumental in the workings of this type of propaganda. The speaker makes a claim that is hedged with qualifications and caveats knowing that their words will be repeated without them.

The second conspiracy theory involved a story on Glenn Beck's site about a government 'plan' to ban PVC pipe. The headline has a question mark but it is clear that the reader is intended to believe this is a real proposal.

Banning PVC pipe in home building probably isn't much of a concern to most people but it would certainly worry the people in the building trade most of whom are the blue collar males who are the target audience for Beck and Limbaugh.

The propaganda follows a pattern that will be familiar to anyone who has watched Beck's show. First there is an incredibly detailed introduction that is designed to prove to the reader that the writer is an authority on the subject by stating a long list of essentially irrelevant facts that could be found on wikipedia. Next there comes a sequence of paragraphs that juxtapose facts in a way that is essentially irrelevant to the point but intended to create an association in the reader's mind. The big lie must be preceded by an advance guard of spurious but hard to check claims designed to distract attention from the blatant misrepresentation to follow:

First off, LEED certification is not cheap. Design and construction review of a new building can cost up to $27,500. In fact, in 2009, the USGBC made over $74 million from accreditation, membership dues, and certification fees. The non-profit organization reported $53 million in net assets at the end of that year.

It $27K for LEED certification expensive or cheap? It all depends on the cost of the building and the planning considerations. $27K would be rather expensive for a single residential building and a rounding error for a developer building an office block or a 100 unit residential community.

Next comes a completely irrelevant statistic:

The extent to which the federal government subsidizes the USGBC is made clear when you realize the amount of LEED-certified building space in Washington, DC, which has more LEED-certified space on a per-capita basis than in any of the 50 states. Over 18.9 million square feet, or 31.5 square feet per resident, is LEED certified in the Washington, DC; the closest state is Colorado, with 2.7 square feet per person.

Does it really make sense to compare a city to a state? Isn't it rather likely that Manhattan, Chicago and Boston have more LEED certified office space per capita than any of the 50 states as well?

Finally, after the preamble has prepared the reader and exhausted their fact checking efforts we get to the money shot, a statement that is clearly designed to get the reader whose livelihood depends on building houses worried:

And this brings us all the way back to PVC. As first mentioned, the GSA is considering new USGBC regulations that include the “avoidance” of the popular material.

As the proposal states: The intent is to “decrease the concentrations of chemical contaminants that can damage air quality, human health, productivity, and the environment.” And to this end, LEED will certify whoever uses products or materials “that do not contain intentionally added substances present in the end product.” This includes Polyvinyl chloride.

OK so assuming that the government is not intending to shut down the construction industry by banning PVC pipe, what is really going on?

What is really happening is that the LEED program has a 'pilot program' that developers can use to secure 'extra credit'. Participating a pilot is optional and many pilots list many different ways to score the credit. The pilot at issue here is Pilot Credit 54 "Avoidance of Chemicals of Concern". The criteria are hardly very exacting:

Use a minimum of 20%, by cost, of at least 3 building product and material types
meeting one of the options below

The option then lists a series of highly toxic materials; lead, mercury cadmium and so on. PVC isn't even in the list. So these are requirements that only apply to 20% of the building materials costs. A PVC building floating on a lake of mercury could qualify for the pilot credit provided at least 20% of the cost was other materials. I don't know how much my plumber spent on PVC pipe but I doubt it added up to more than a few hundred bucks. It certainly didn't amount to 80%.

PVC only appears in 'Option 2' which is an alternative option within the pilot and the wording is rather obscure:

Meet the requirements of Option 1.AND Use third party certified building products and materials that do not contain intentionally added substances present in the end product over the reporting thresholds
below. Calculate compliant building products and materials at twice the cost.

What this appears to say is that if your materials don't contain PVC or the other substances in concentrations higher than those allowed they count double. So you only need to source 10% of your components from these sources.

I can't see how a developer would have a problem meeting the requirements. My biggest building material expenses were concrete, framing lumber and plywood. The real challenge would be documenting that the requirements were met.

Remember that LEED is an optional program designed to illustrate best of breed, it is not regulation. This proposal isn't even a proposal for a LEED requirement. If the pilot requirements are unmeetable, nobody is going to meet them. If nobody meets them, the pilot proposals are unlikely to even become a LEED requirement.

This position is reinforced by a series of statements by what are cited as 'experts' but are really spokespersons for the PVC industry:

Allen Blakey, vice president of Industry and Government Affairs for the Vinyl Institute, says his organization is “astonished to see PVC added to the USGBC’s list of chemicals to avoid,” the report adds. According to Blakey, PVC is a material that’s been studied for some time by the USGBC itself.

And finally the writer heads off into crazy loopsville:

So why is LEED trying to blacklist the material?

Well, maybe it’s important to understand a little bit more about LEED’s “founding founder” Robert Watson, a man who infamously said “Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment.”

This are not the ravings of a lunatic, they are the work of a deliberate, cynical propagandist. Deconstructing the propaganda is really not hard but it does require some critical thinking skills. The type of skills that Republicans would rather not see taught in schools.

First the reader needs to be able to identify the small set of factual statements that are actually relevant. Next the reader has to fact check the key claims by examining the original sources. In this case the key source is a document that appears to be written by lawyers for lawyers but even a quick glance demonstrates that it is being misrepresented. Finally the reader has to do a bit of work with Google to find the original source for the out of context quote. This is what I found:

Lest we forget. "Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment," Rob Watson of the Natural Resources Defense Council tells Grist magazine (November 25). "All of the buildings in the U.S. consume more than twice as much energy as all of the cars in the country." Chicago has a building that does much better--the Chicago Center for Green Technology, at 445 N. Sacramento, is the third building in the country to receive a "platinum" rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Read the rest of this post...

Will Limbaugh, with the help of Romney's Bain Capital, bring down Clear Channel?

Three weeks ago Rush Limbaugh was the undisputed king of talk radio. Not only did he have the most stations and the best broadcast slots, the audiences he attracted meant that he could actually charge stations for his show. Most talk radio shows are provided to the stations for free, bartering space on the dial for a half share of the advertising slots.

Limbaugh's show is distributed by Premiere, which is in turn owned by Clear Channel, a company with a balance sheet that has been running red ink for some time as the outdoor advertising market went sour during the recession. The Motley Fool has an interesting analysis of Clear Channel's attractiveness as a stock pick, scoring the company a mere 2 out of 10 on its investment screen. Forbes reports that the company has $19.2 billion in debt.

But wait, it gets worse (or better).

Clear Channel's stock has just jumped after the company announced that it would borrow $2.2 billion to pay a special dividend of $6 to shareholders. Regular readers of this blog will remember the special dividend as one of the tricks used by Mitt Romney to make his fortune at Bain Capital. The crew would buy a company with money borrowed against the value of the company then borrow even more money to fund a special dividend that would mean a huge profit for them and likely bankruptcy for the company. And, hey, lookee here [Matt Koppenheffer, my emphasis]:

In a press release today, Clear Channel, which is largely controlled by Bain Capital, announced that it will be raising $2.2 billion via two debt offerings. The company will then turn around and use $2.17 billion of the proceeds to pay a $6.08-per-share special cash dividend to shareholders on record as of March 12. As the big jump in the stock suggests, the move was well received by investors.

Forbes states that Bain Capital paid $17.2 billion to acquire the company. The huge debt load suggests that what Bain really did was to put in as little of their own money as possible and the rest makes up the lions share of that $19.2 billion in debt. Matt is not too impressed by this:

You'll have to excuse me if I throw up in my mouth just a little bit. Maybe I'm just a sissy when it comes to debt, but the idea of a company practically doubling its indebtedness in order to pay out a massive dividend just doesn't sit well with me.

The only reason I can see that the stock would jump $1.50 on the news of the special dividend is a short squeeze. When a company pays a dividend, a short seller has to cover it. So an investor short 1,000 shares in Clear Channel would be facing a $6,000 charge to their account.

The Limbaugh crisis leaves Clear Channel paying $38 million a year for a broadcaster who has recently lost a good deal of his paid advertisers and has driven many advertisers away from talk radio completely. And this comes when their competitor, Cumulus Media Networks, is preparing to launch Mike Huckabee's new show. Cumulus owns many of Limbaugh's highest profile stations, and even before the Fluke crisis, the launch of the Huckabee show was seen as a move intended to recapture the younger and female listeners that Limbaugh has been hemorrhaging in recent years.

As anyone who has seen the Golf Channel knows, a channel does not need to attract a large audience if it attracts the right audience. Limbaugh attracts large numbers of the elderly white low income demographic that few advertisers are interested in. Huckabee attracts younger listeners and female listeners that advertisers are most interested in.

So lets recap, Clear Channel is losing a large slice of advertising revenue for a broadcaster they are paying $38 million a year. The company has a market cap of $5.5 billion, and $19 billion in debt. Despite a junk bond rating, the company is planning to borrow another $2.2 billion to pay a $2 billion dividend to Bain Capital. That will leave the company with a market cap of $3.3 billion, and $21.2 billion in debt with $4 billion due in 2014 and another $12 billion up to 2016.

And don't forget that in the increasingly likely case that these Vampire Capital tactics put Clear Channel into bankruptcy, Chapter 11 will allow the same management team who engineered it to stay in control and later find a new clutch of investors to bilk.

So the answer to my question in the subject line turns out to be "no": Mitt Romney's Bain capital looks like it was doing a fine job of destroying Clear Channel all on its own. But Limbaugh's bigotry and the advertiser boycott he brought on himself might well turn out to be the final straw.

Update: A lawsuit brought on behalf of the minority shareholders in Clear Channel Outdoor alleges that Clear Channel Corporation (holder of the 89% controlling interest in CCC) forced CCO to make a $1 billion loan to CCC on unfavorable terms.

Update 2: And there is an investigation into whether an unexplained 11% price movement in the CCO stock ahead of the news was caused by insiders front-running the trade. Read the rest of this post...

Majority say fire Limbaugh, another station drops his show

Wow.  I'm actually a bit surprised. And remember, any time we have a majority that means Democrats AND Independents are siding with us. And that's interesting.

More than half of those interviewed also say radio host Rush Limbaugh, who called a female law student testifying publicly in favor of birth-control coverage a “slut” and “prostitute,” should be fired based solely on those comments.

And this just in, a third station (this time in CA) has now dropped his show.

Official statement from Charlie and Trish Busch-G.M./Business Mgr.

“I regret to inform the fans of the Rush Limbaugh program that 1140 KVLI will no longer be airing his daily show.

Please believe this had nothing to do with recent events involving Mr. Limbaugh. The decision to cancel the program was made in December of last year for financial reasons only. A 90-day notice, as required by our contract, was given then.


The Rush Limbaugh program was the only daily show we carry that charged us a significant amount of money each month to air. Due to the current economic status in our market, certain operating cuts had to be made. Unfortunately, Rush was among those cuts. Attempts were made with his organization to “clear” the program at no cost, or at a reduced cost, but they were not willing to do so. I hope this sheds light on the situation.

Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh syndicator suspends national ads for two weeks to let things calm down

Wow, someone is in real trouble. Read the rest of this post...

CNN: All talk radio suffering from Limbaugh fallout

Read the rest of this post...

140 advertisers dump Limbaugh

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

Think Progress gets its hands on an internal memo from Premiere Radio Networks that lists nearly 100 national companies that have asked that their advertisements not be played on the Rush Limbaugh show — companies that have not been publicly named until now. Think Progress claims that brings the total of sponsors who have pulled out in the wake of the “slut” controversy to 141 — far more than previously thought.

I’ve confirmed the authenticity of the memo with a spokesperson for Premiere, home to Rush’s show. It’s unclear for now what exactly it means.

Read the rest of this post...

A history of Rush Limbaugh's disturbing attacks on children

NOTE FROM JOHN: I'd like to welcome Gabriel Ortiz to the blog.  Gabriel will be writing on gay issues, immigration, and a little bit of everything else.
_______________

Rush Limbaugh’s disgusting anti-woman tirades over the past few days haven’t been limited to Sandra Fluke and women. An overgrown bully in every sense, Limbaugh’s disturbing rants over the past decades have extended to children, most notably First Daughters Chelsea Clinton, Malia Obama, and Amy Carter.

It’s no coincidence that the girls are also children of Democratic presidents – a quick Google search finds Limbaugh defending Jenna Bush from “liberal media” only a few years ago. Further searches reveal that neither Jenna nor her sister have been subjected to the same humiliating taunts, with Rush and his on-air cohorts only describing Jenna as “spunky.”

Consider Limbaugh's treatment of Malia Obama in 2010 when she was only 11 years old.  Limbaugh mocked Malia in a disturbing “skit” about the BP spill, where he tried to imitate the child’s voice and instead came out sounding like something out of “The Exorcist.” Malia’s inclusion in this topic was inexplicable, as the child had nothing to do with the spill, and was seemingly introduced as a gratuitous way for Limbaugh to humiliate her father.

In 1988, an adult Amy Carter – the sole daughter of President Jimmy Carter – reemerged to the national spotlight after protesting U.S. involvement in Central America and apartheid in South Africa. Instead of furthering civil discussion of these topics, Limbaugh’s response was to call her “the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of the country." He was forced to apologize, but not before adding an additional insult years later during his radio show: “She can't help the way she looks.”

Limbaugh’s most disturbing bullying incident stretches to a few years later, when he called a then-13-year-old Chelsea Clinton “the White House dog.” Limbaugh again half-heartedly apologized, but not before blaming the error on a technical glitch, saying that a picture of Chelsea was mistakenly displayed instead of the dog’s. “I don't need to get laughs by commenting on people's looks, especially a young child who's done nothing wrong,” he added. “I mean, she can't control the way she looks.”

Sound familiar?

While Limbaugh's attacks on Fluke and other women are despicable, adults are able to defend themselves. Picking on kids – as Limbaugh has done and continues to do – has no place in public discourse. When Limbaugh goes to this place, he ceases to be the commentator he claims to be and instead becomes the schoolyard bully who picks on the younger and more helpless kids in order to satisfy his own demented hunger for power.

What kind of a man picks on children? Read the rest of this post...

Doonesbury this week takes on GOP anti-abortion rampage, including Limbaugh

UPDATE: The Doonesbury strip, the first installment, is online now. It's good.

From the Guardian:

The strip deals specifically with a law introduced in Texas and other states requiring a woman who wants to have an abortion to have an ultrasound scan, or sonogram, which will show an image of the foetus and other details, in an attempt to make her reconsider.

It portrays a woman who turns up at an abortion clinic in Texas and is told to take a seat in "the shaming room". A state legislator asks if she has been at the clinic before and, when she says she had been to get contraceptives, he replies: "Do your parents know you're a sl*t?"

Later, she says she does not want an intrusive vaginal examination but is told by a nurse: "The male Republicans who run Texas require that all abortion seekers be examined with a 10-inch shaming wand." The nurse adds: "By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape."

I thee rape? Wow. Read the rest of this post...

Advertisers now fleeing Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck and Savage

John Avalon in The Daily Beast writes that the advertisers are not merely avoiding Limbaugh, they are avoiding all 'controversial' content. He cites as evidence, this memo obtained by Tom Taylor from Premiere Radio Networks, the distributors of the Rush Limbaugh show and many other hate radio programs:

“To all Traffic Managers: The information below applies to your Premiere Radio Networks commercial inventory. More than 350 different advertisers sponsor the programs and services provided to your station on a barter basis. Like advertisers that purchase commercials on your radio station from your sales staff, our sponsors communicate specific rotations, daypart preferences and advertising environments they prefer… They’ve specifically asked that you schedule their commercials in dayparts or programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity). Those are defined as environments likely to stir negative sentiment from a very small percentage of the listening public.”

While Premiere distributes many right wing radio shows, they also distribute Randi Rhodes and Jessie Jackson, neither of whom are mentioned in the memo. While it is likely that some advertisers have decided to avoid all political advertising, the memo suggests that most are avoiding hate radio in general and not just Limbaugh.

From a business perspective, this makes perfect sense. Advertisers are worried about the next stupid and hateful outburst from a hate radio jock, not just Limbaugh or this particular incident.

It has taken long enough. Hate radio grew because the shows attracted more advertisers than non-partisan or progressive shows, not because there was more demand. And the hate radio shock jocks used the voice provided by their advertisers to drive countless liberals out of public life.

What is coming apart here is not just Rush Limbaugh's career, it is the right wing conspiracy machine. Read the rest of this post...

Family Research Council email: "Rush is Right"

There's a reason the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled the religious right group Family Research Council an official hate group.

The group's C4, FRC Action, sent an email today about some voter registration tour it's doing, and the title of the email is "Rush is right."  They're  being cute with that title.  It sure seems that they're trying to get people to think that they mean Rush is right about calling law student Sandra Fluke a "sl*t" for testifying before Congress about the medical necessity of birth control for some women.

Think about that.  A group that claims to be a Christian organization seems to be playing off of calling a woman a "sl*t" in order to get more traction on a donor email.

Even if they weren't trying to make people think that they meant Rush is right about calling Fluke a sl*t, why would any Christian group associate itself with Limbaugh in the middle of this controversy?

But of course, a Christian group wouldn't.  But a hate group would. Read the rest of this post...

Howie Kurtz is right and wrong about Rush Limbaugh

Howie Kurtz on why Rush's apology failed.

Right.

But while Rush dutifully recited the words, there was no music. He never called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law student he had assailed as a “slut” and “prostitute” over her advocacy of contraceptive coverage. He kept slamming her for three days before issuing his statement of regret—which came as advertisers were starting to bail on his radio program, giving the exercise an air of damage control. He flunked the contrition test, retracting only his word choice and larding the statement with attacks on the left.

Wrong.

The apology failed for another reason: the mainstream media, much mocked by Limbaugh, has it in for him. There was no uproar in the press when Bill Maher, now a million-dollar donor to Obama’s super PAC, called Sarah Palin the C word as well as a “dumb twat.” Ed Schultz’s sl*t attack was a relative blip. Limbaugh, who is carried on more than 600 stations, has a far bigger megaphone, but he’s cut no slack by the left-leaning media. Sl*tgate was carried on MSNBC every 10 minutes or so (and largely downplayed at Fox News).

Come on, Howie. You're a good journalist. You know as well as I do that Rush Limbaugh is a bigger and better story than Bill Maher (sorry, Bill).  What's makes a story "news" is a tough thing to define, but it's not tough to recognize "news" if you have a gut for news.   A few reasons Limbaugh is bigger news than Maher.

1. Limbaugh has a much bigger audience than Maher.
2. Limbaugh has far more political power than Bill Maher.  As David Frum wrote recently for CNN, Democrats don't pee their pants when Bill Maher criticizes them.  Rush Limbaugh got an apology from the (other) head of the Republican party.
3. This isn't Limbaugh's first time at the dance.  He's been far more controversial, and offensive, than Bill Maher.  That is to say, Limbaugh's hands are far less clean than Maher's; this is hardly his first offense, or his fiftieth.
4. Bill Maher attacked someone who attacks others just as viciously.  Limbaugh attacked an innocent, and a relative unknown.
5. Advertisers started leaving Limbaugh (which is news), while Maher is on HBO and doesn't have advertisers.

Does this excuse Bill Maher for using the c-word about Sarah Palin?  No way.  I didn't even realize he'd used it until a CNN reporter mentioned it to me.  That word is off-limits, period.  I don't care who the target is.  And in fact, Joe and I once censored a video we posted during the 2008 elections of an interview we did with actress Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher because she used the c-word about Sarah Palin.  So I think we've been pretty consistent on our feelings towards that word, regardless of party affiliation.

But, the issue here is why the media is paying far more attention to Rush Limbaugh's use of the word versus Bill Maher's.  And I think it's too easy to explain all this away by saying that the media has it in for Limbaugh.  If that were the case, then why didn't every other Limbaugh eruption, like the time he played the song "Barack the Magic Negro" cause a similar uproar?  The media has had ample opportunity to take down Limbaugh had they wanted to.  In this case, for whatever reason, the circumstances came together in a way that made it a bigger story, more newsworthy, and the media responded accordingly. Read the rest of this post...

Big Brothers, Big Sisters drops Limbaugh

Bloomberg:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is working with the [Ad] council to pull its spots from stations that carry the Limbaugh show, Jill Godsey, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia-based organization, said in an e-mail.

“We made this decision at the request of national and local donors, some of whom made their concerns known via Facebook and Twitter posts,” Godsey said.

Read the rest of this post...

United Negro College Fund brushes off questions about why it’s advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s show

It's a free public service announcement, but still... the American Heart Association didn't want its brand associated with Rush Limbaugh, so it pulled its free PSAs.  But the United Negro College Fund, which has something in common with Limbaugh - Limbaugh's show uses the word "Negro" too - deferred questions about its advertisign to someone else.  Bloomberg:

Joye Griffin, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax, Virginia-based United Negro College Fund, referred an inquiry to the New York- based Ad Council, which manages spots for the fund and other groups.

Profile in courage. Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh calls female Washington Post columnist "b-tchy"

You'd think that using the word "b*tch" to refer to a woman might be something Rush Limbaugh would avoid, following an exodus of his advertisers for referring to another woman as a "sl*t." Read the rest of this post...

Women's military group wants Limbaugh off the Armed Forces Radio Network

"Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) applauds Senator Carl Levin's endorsement to remove the Rush Limbaugh show from Armed Forces Radio. SWAN urges Secretary of Defense Leon Panatta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to join more than 46 advertisers who have pulled their ads from the Rush Limbaugh show. The backlash to Mr. Limbaugh's regrettable misogynistic name calling of Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student reflects a growing consensus in America that bigotry in any form is not acceptable. Out of respect for service women, SWAN believes Armed Forces Radio should remove the show immediately."

-Anu Bhagwati
SWAN Executive Director
Former marine captain

Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh: Why the outrage now?

Bill Somerby raises an excellent question which he then fails to answer:

For the past twenty years, we have been an inept and feckless non-movement, permitting El Rushbo prosper. Suddenly, though, the outrage is general, in response to Limbaugh’s ridiculous comments about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Question: Why is this the place where we’ve taken our stand? Why all the outrage now?

Understanding why Limbaugh is staggering after the Fluke outburst but not his previous attacks is important. Limbaugh is certainly one of the most dishonest and bigoted pundits on the air today but not the only one. And Limbaugh's radio kindgom is only a shadow of Murdoch's evil empire. Limbaugh plays Saruman to Murdoch's Sauron, Jabba the Hutt to his Palpatine.

But Somerby is completely wrong when he says liberals have allowed Rush to prosper unchallenged. If he doesn't get so much attention now its because Beck and O'Reilly have left him in their shadow. But back in his '90s heyday, Al Franken wrote Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, an entire book setting out his lies chapter and verse. And Franken wasn't the only person doing this.

Meanwhile the right is trying to start their Outrage-2000 that used to work so well but has become unreliable in recent years asking why isn't the left outraged at the nasty things Maher said about Palin? Well I can't say for sure but maybe they remember all the nasty hateful things that Palin has said about other people and don't think she deserves any sympathy (i.e., she doesn't have clean hands in this fight).

It isn't just Palin.  Previous complaints about Limbaugh attacking liberal politicians didn't garner much sympathy or pressure from advertisers. Pelosi and Palin are both (correctly) seen by the public, and advertisers, as combatants.

Sandra Fluke, however, is not a politician, she is not even a journalist -- she entered this battle with clean hands. Limbaugh's attack was repeated, crude and left no room to doubt or excuse his motives. Rep. Issa had prevented Fluke from testifying in his congressional hearing on women's health (the witnesses were all men), and Limbaugh was determined to finish Issa's work by bullying Fluke off the public stage.



The fact that Fluke had been speaking on an issue of specific importance for women, and that the Republican party had been desperate to exclude women from the debate, made Limbaugh's strategy all the more transparent. The sight of a corpulent slug, with a history of drug abuse, calling a young law student from a good school "a prostitute" for simply sharing her story with Congress, was finally more than the public could bear. Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh down to 1 paid advertiser in NYC; 90 percent of ads today were free PSAs

Rush Limbaugh is in trouble.  Two days ago he didn't have a single unpaid public service announcement on his flagship show on WABC in NYC.  Yesterday, 56% of his ads in NYC were unpaid PSAs.  Today, 90% were unpaid PSAs, and the show included three occurrences of 'dead air'.

Here's a breakdown with the help of Media Matters' data:

86 ads aired today on Limbaugh's show on WABC in NYC

• 3 occurrences of dead air
  
  1 Advertiser sticking with Limbaugh
• 2 Small Business Authority ads in association with the Corporate Tax Network
  
  3 Advertisers who have asked ads to be pulled
• 3 Netflix ads (Netflix has never intentionally advertised on his show, the ads are being pulled)
• 1 O'Reilly Auto Parts ad (Already asked to be pulled)
• 3 Constant Contact ads (Already dropped)
  
• 77 Free PSAs
• 7 United Negro College Fund ads (unpaid psa)
• 6 Feeding America ads (unpaid psa)
• 6 Big Brothers Big Sisters ads (unpaid psa)
• 14 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ads (unpaid psa)
• 14 Save the Children ads (unpaid psa)
• 17 American Heart Association ads (unpaid psa)
• 13 NY City Office of Emergency Management (unpaid psa)

Assuming that Netflix and Constant Contact are telling the truth, that is a total shut-out. Rush has lost almost all of his paid advertisers on his flagship WABC show, at least judging by today's line up. His only remaining sponsor is The Small Business Authority which is currently locked into a year-long sponsorship deal with WABC.

The unpaid spots were all obtained from the Ad Council and all a broadcaster needs to run them is to register for an account.The AHA has already asked Limbaugh to drop their ads. A boycott is definitely working when even the unpaid advertisers are heading for the exits.

Right now, Limbaugh is too radioactive even for the scam artists. This is probably a smart move on their part as the last thing a company with a shady history wants is to attract attention. Lifelock came out in Limbaugh's support but seem to have thought better of it after people started to mention that $12 million settlement they just made with the FTC for deceptive advertising.

For all his communications skill, Limbaugh is an entertainer. And as Michael Vick found, advertisers don't want to associate with entertainers who have turned themselves into public figures of hate. Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh show twice airs dead air time this afternoon in lieu of ads

I noted earlier today that 56% of Rush Limbaugh's ads during his radio show yesterday were unpaid free public service announcements. The day before he didn't run any free PSAs. Today, following the news that the American Heart Association pulled its PSA from Limbaugh's show, the broadcast aired dead air two different times during today's show when there should have been advertisements - one was for a minute, and the second for two minutes and 40 seconds.  From Media Matters:

Rush Limbaugh closed the first hour of his radio show on his flagship station, WABC, with 1:03 of dead air Monday.

While advertisers have fled Limbaugh's show since his misogynistic attacks on Sandra Fluke, the first hour of every show since those attacks aired on March 1 has concluded with at least one ad leading into an ABC News break at the top of the second hour.



Similarly, during the commercial break that led into the show, there was 2:38 of dead air.

Read the rest of this post...