Rush (to the toilet so I can puke)

Rush Limbaugh's' audience has gone from 20 million at its peak to 13 million at the first of this year to consensus figures of 10 million today. How has he lost nearly a third of his seriously diminished audience in less than a year? The reasons are multitude but the Micheal J. Fox situation is a good example. He's a mean pompous bully that cares nothing about real politic, just in pushing the smear agenda. It is a proper point of debate to argue the merits of various kinds of stem cell research. This sadly is not the Limbaugh way. Nope he decided again that smear was the easy way to debate and the easy way to rile the sheeple. The sad thing is the “liberal media” keeps reporting that Limbaugh apologized. At a certain point after the rant he said this:
Now people are telling me they have seen Michael J. Fox in interviews and he does appear the same way in the interviews as he does in this commercial," Limbaugh said, according to a transcript on his Web site. "All right then, I stand corrected. . . . So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act."
Then Limbaugh pivoted to a different critique: "Michael J. Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democratic politician."
First look at his glorification of himself for “admitting” a mistake. Bigly, hugely pompous. This isn't an apology, this is a glorification of himself. There is zero humility included. Then he attacks from a different angle. He says Fox is “Allowing his illness to be exploited ..shilling for a Democratic politician”. What the hell is he talking about and what country does he think he lives in. Certainly not the one I aspire to live in. His illness is real and how he with the disease showing people its effects is exploitative is beyond me. Shilling? He is supporting those he thinks are most likely to help him achieve the goal he seeks. Sounds like what the rest of us do, or at least should do, when deciding who to support or vote for. Just who does El Rushbo think he is and why do people have any respect for him? It is apparent from his numbers there are fewer everyday.The worst part about the whole deal is once he got the “liberal media” to say he “apologized” he bigly hugely turned right back claiming his crap:
I stand by what I said. I take back none of what I said. I wouldn’t rephrase it any differently. It is what I believe; it is what I think. It is what I have found to be true.
Yep the ol truth detector. If he wanted debate stem cell research he could have said something to the effect of ..Micheal J Fox made an impassioned commercial for (whoever) on stem cell research. Stem cell research will... or stem cell research should only be done... Nope,smear, no facts. He has no desire to really talk about the issues. We were actually warned in August or September that the bulk of Republican money would be used this election cycle in negative smear commericials. They weren't kidding. Of course Rush has been there for years. All smear all the time.
How anyone but the weakest of minds could find any enlightenment in his program is beyond me. I am sure we will soon see him dancing in front of the wheelchair bound and laughing.

The Terrorist Threat

Keith Olberman speaks for us.

Once again Keith says stuff I (and many others) have been saying for sometime now, Republicans say we are aiding the terrorist when they actually do a much better job of it themselves.
..the Republican National Committee(commercial) .. shows images of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. It offers quotes from them, all as a clock ticks ominously in the background...The dictionary definition of the word ‘terrorize' is simple and not open to misinterpretation: "To fill or overpower with terror; terrify; coerce by intimidation or fear." Note please that the words ‘violence' and ‘death' are missing from that definition. For the key to terrorism is not the act-but the fear of the act. That is why bin Laden and his deputies and his imitators are forever putting together videotape statements and releasing virtual infomercials with dire threats and heart-stopping warnings. But why is the Republican Party imitating them?...The Republicans are paying to have the messages of bin Laden and the others broadcast into your home! Only the Republicans have a bigger bankroll. When last week, the CNN network ran video of an insurgent in Iraq evidently stalking and killing an American soldier, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Mr. Hunter, Republican of California, branded that channel quote "the publicist for an enemy propaganda film," and added that CNN used it to sell commercials. Another California Republican, Representative Brian Bilbray, called the video quote "nothing short of a terrorist snuff film." If so, Mr. Bilbray, then what in the hell is your party's new advertisement? And Mr. Hunter? CNN using the film to sell commercials? Commercials? You have adopted bin Laden and Zawahiri as spokesmen for the Republican National Committee. ‘To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear' By this definition, the people who put these videos together: first, the terrorists and then, the administration, whose shared goal is to scare you into panicking instead of thinking, they are the ones terrorizing you. By this definition, the leading terrorist group in this world right now is al Qaeda, but the leading terrorist group in this country right now is the Republican Party. Eleven presidents ago, the chief executive reassured us that ‘we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.' His distant successor has wasted his administration, insisting there is nothing we can have but fear itself.
The Republicans bely the land of the free and the home of the brave. The radical right comes up with no concrete proposals to fight terrorism, only more fear 300 billion and more power for the President to do whatever he wants in the name of fighting the “terrorists”. The constitution be damned! They say what good are our freedoms if we are dead!? I say what good is a country without those freedoms if we are to live? After this amount of time I would only be able to hope that the loyal opposition would be better at protecting us than the radical right. The right are miserable failures. We are not more secure at home or abroad and the world is a cauldron. That IS NOT keeping us safer. That is the antithesis of keep us safe. How could that not be plain to all. My biggest fear is that the dangerous, reckless, habeas corpus diluting radical right will continue their reign of terror.

Linkanator

Please post links to articles, blog posts etc that you find worth sharing. Thanks!

News And Views

Marine beefcake kicks it for their homies.
The "America's Heroes" calendar is being sold by Freedom is Not Free, a San Diego-based nonprofit group that helps injured service members and their families with such expenses as travel, mortgage and utility bills and special beds for burn victims. .....Several members of the group, promoting the calendar on a cross-country tour, said Thursday they have medical conditions, ranging from combat stress-related symptoms to injuries to their feet, knees, hips and backs from carrying combat loads of more than 200 pounds. .....It's a stopgap effort to help people where government programs leave off," said Rudy Reyes, who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan and is on the calendar's cover.
The Republicons support our troops until they come home. Kinda like they support our babies until they are born. After that every body is on their own.

Traitorous administration diplomat “aids the terrorists”.
A senior U.S. State Department diplomat told Arab satellite network Al Jazeera that there is a strong possibility history will show the United States displayed "arrogance" and "stupidity" in its handling of the Iraq war. Alberto Fernandez, director of the Office of Press and Public Diplomacy in the Bureau of Near East Affairs, made his comments on Saturday to the Qatar-based network. "History will decide what role the United States played," he told Al Jazeera in Arabic, based on CNN translations. "And God willing, we tried to do our best in Iraq." "But I think there is a big possibility ... for extreme criticism and because undoubtedly there was arrogance and stupidity from the United States in Iraq," the diplomat told Al Jazeera.
Of course the lowest rated in his timeslot Glenn Beck likely won't mention it. A fair and balanced media only demeans the left. To do the same to the right would be politically uncorrect.

Wes Clark points out what is obvious to most.
...retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark said the Bush Administration is playing into the hands of Al Qaeda by creating “zones of chaos” where the terrorist organization can work to build Islamic fundamentalist states. Clark said he was recently briefed by the Army on the strategy of Al Qaeda. According to the organization’s website, Al Qaeda hopes the United States will be “overextended” by various crises around the world. In these areas, Al Qaeda hopes to create “zones of chaos and savagery” where they can build fundamentalist Islamic states to take on the United States. Clark said with Iraq, Afghanistan, and looming problems with Iran and North Korea the country is falling right in the playbook of Al Qaeda. “The greatest gift we could have given Osama Bin Laden is to invade Iraq. He’s gone in their and exploited it,” ..
..The rightists response to this was to , of course, demean Clark. I would say they may want to listen to him as he was able to win a war and with few causalities . Something they have not been able to even come close to doing.

Not able to stay the course on the bumper sticker war.
During an interview today on ABC’s This Week, President Bush tried to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years. George Stephanopoulos asked about James Baker’s plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is “between ’stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’” Bush responded, ‘We’ve never been stay the course, George!’
Gee why would he repeat those very words over and over again then? What the hell are they going to use to rationalize this bullshit!?