"Dear Prudence" offers advice to Limbaugh on his apology

It's obvious Limbaugh was poorly raised because that was about the worst excuse for an apology ever. He's clearly not big enough to admit he was wrong and provide a simple apology. Emily Yoffe (Dear Prudence) takes Limbaugh to task. Slate:

“For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. [Don’t lead with self-congratulation. If you’re aiming for self-pity, that’s also not the way to start an apology. After all, you’re not making the case that your remarks were the result of sleep deprivation or a medical crisis caused by overwork. Underlining that you get paid millions of dollars to sit in front of a microphone 15 hours a week does not create sympathy.] In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. [This wasn’t an errant remark, but a three-day attack. You pretty much ran through a thesaurus’ worth of synonyms to characterize Ms. Fluke, and you make your living choosing words. An apology should not drip with insincerity.] I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke. [This is false on its face, so not a good strategy.]

Keep reading, because it's an excellent response. Read the rest of this post...

Rush just lost a station - make that two

Media Matters reports that Hilo, Hawaii-based KPUA AM 670 has dropped the Rush Limbaugh show. This is on top of the 13 advertisers that have dropped him.

"We have always encouraged spirited discussion about national and local issues on KPUA and from time to time those discussions may be deemed by some to be objectionable. We are strong believers in the first amendment and have recognized Mr. Limbaugh's right to express opinions that often times differ from our own, but it has never been our goal to allow our station to be used for personal attacks and intolerance. The most recent incident has crossed a line of decency and a standard that we expect of programming on KPUA whether it is locally produced or a syndicated program like the Rush Limbaugh show.

While much of the national debate regarding this issue is now being framed in political terms, the decision for us is one of decency and responsibility. Regardless of one's political views on the issue being discussed, we feel the delivery was degrading and the continued comments over several days to be egregious. As a result, we are discontinuing the Rush Limbaugh program on KPUA effective immediately."

HuffPost reports another has dropped him as well, WBEC in Pittsfield, Mass.

As with the Don Imus 'Nappy headed hos' comment, no sane advertiser wants to be associated with Limbaugh's misogynistic comments. When the advertisers leave, the stations will follow.

If you do call to complain about Rush, remember to be polite. The person you are speaking to likely has no idea their company was advertising on his show or site. They are likely to be as outraged as you are.  John has a list of today's Limbaugh advertisers on WABC, including their Twitter handles so you can tweet and ask them why they're still advertising on his show.  And remember, even if they say they don't "directly" advertise on his show, that doesn't mean their ads aren't running - they need to tell you that they have directed their ad buyers to never put their ads on his show in the future.

Read the rest of this post...

Twitter handles of advertisers still on Limbaugh’s radio show; 13 now dropped

UPDATED: 3/6/12 - This list is now outdated.  Please check the second column of the blog for an updated list of advertisers, and contact them based on that list.  Thanks.

UPDATED: 8:16pm - You'll find Twitter handles for today's advertisers below.  Please tweet them, and retweet this post.

13 advertisers have now dropped Rush Limbaugh's radio show after he called a Georgetown law student a "sl-t" for testifying before a panel of the House of Representatives. Per Media Matters, here are the companies that advertised on Limbaugh's show today on WABC - the list has been confirmed by Media Matters, the ads ran. 


Below you'll find Twitter handles for the various companies - I think this is the most effective way to contact them. It's public, and people will retweet it easily. One more thing about how ads work, and how to avoid being fooled by these companies.  A company doesn't always choose what show its ad runs on - they can, for example, buy ads on an entire network and let the network decide which shows and what time (it's cheaper than picking specific shows and times).  This permits advertisers, like Netflix, to misleadingly claim that gosh they're not "direct advertisers" on Limbaugh's show - thus tricking people into thinking they don't advertise on his show at all, when what they really are saying is that they didn't CHOOSE his specific show to advertise on, not that their ads aren't running there.  They can still tell their ad person to make sure none of their ads run on Limbaugh's show - so why dont they?

A Place for Mom @aplaceformom

AccuQuote @AccuQuote

ADT Security @ADTstaysafe

AkinMears, G.P.

American Credit Card Solutions

Ameristar Tax Centers @AmeriStarTax

Bare Escentuals Mineral Makeup @BareEscentuals

Bonobos @Bonobos (Bonobos says they've directed that no more ads run. Thank them.)

Becoming China's Bitch by Peter Kiernan (Ad ran accidentally, it's been pulled)

Capital One @AskCapitalOne

Child Booster Seat PSA, Ad Council and DOT

Concentra

Constant Contact @ConstantContact

CRN

Eos Sleep @eossleep

Freedom Debt Relief @FreedomFamily

Geico @Geico

Heritage for the Blind @HeritageBlind

HydraCare

InventHelp @InventHelp

JC Penney's @JCPenney

Matrix Direct @MatrixDirect

Medipattern Corporation

Merit Financial @MeritFinancial

Netflix @Netflix

New York Lottery Powerball

O'Reilly Auto Parts @OreillyAuto

Peerless Boilers @PeerlessBoilers

Reputation Rhino @ReputationRhino

RightSize Smoothies @RightSize

Sears @Sears  (Sears says its ad ran by accident last week.  Well it ran by accident again today.)

Sensa

Service Magic @ServiceMagic

St. Vincent's Medical Center (Bridgeport, CT) @StVincentsMC

The Small Business Authority/Corporate Tax Network

TurboTax @TurboTax

US Tax Shield @USTaxShield

Wave Home Solutions @WaveHome

Read the rest of this post...

9th and 10th advertisers drop Limbaugh; show's ratings now called into question

And then it was 9.  This thing isn't going away.

Make that 10 now.

As if things couldn't get worse, now Limbaugh's ratings are being called into question.  From Cenk Uygur:

How many listeners does Rush Limbaugh have? Well, in the press there are only two numbers you'll ever see -- 20 million or 15 million. Those are large numbers, so that is why Limbaugh is taken seriously and is believed to be influential.

I've got news for you -- those numbers are a total fabrication. They're made up out of whole cloth. You want to know where the 20 million number came from? It was first printed in Billboard magazine back in 1993. Here is the quote:

"Limbaugh's show is now heard on 610 stations and reaches approximately 20 million listeners, according to [Kit] Carson."

So who is Kit Carson? A guy known as Rush Limbaugh's "chief of staff." In other words, Rush's team simply made up the 20 million number and everyone believed it. He has never, ever presented any evidence to that effect.

The 15 million number comes from Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine. He is considered the leading expert on the talk radio industry. He is a good man and fights hard for his industry. You want to know where he came up with the number? Pretty much pulled it out of the sky. When Tommy Christopher of AOL News (at the time, he is now with Mediate) asked him how he arrived at the figure, here is what Harrison said:

They are only our thumbnail estimates based upon our contacts in the field, tracking of Arbitron estimates and understanding of the business. We make no claims as to "scientific" accuracy... [T]hey are not "ratings" per se.

I love that -- they are not ratings, per se. In other words, those are not his ratings at all!

Read the rest of this post...

Please stop laughing at the GOP presidential candidates

Jon Green

NOTE FROM JOHN:  Please welcome Jon Green, a sophomore Political Science major at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He is also the editor in chief of Kenyon's political journal, the Kenyon Observer. I've been wanting for a while to get some youth voices on the blog, rather than the usual angry old men that we are, so Jon is our first addition. But not our last. Stay tuned, and please join me in welcoming Jon.
_________________

Find a scratch piece of 8.5x11 paper, turn it lengthwise, and try to fold it on a 4:1 ratio (the crease should be 2.2 inches from the edge of the paper, you can check with a ruler after you make the fold). Now, take a new piece of paper and fold it in half. It's a lot easier, right? Just like your brain finds it easier to see the center than 2.2 inches from the edge, it's more convenient to find balance than to pinpoint how far from center something really is.

While the above example deals with spatial reasoning, the same is true for cognitive evaluation; when we say we want to hear 'both sides of the issue' we imply that we are going to apply equal weight to both sides, regardless of how crazy one side might be.

In American politics, you can get your way by winning the center or making the center come to you. Republicans have found that the latter is easier -- they simply move the center by staking absolutist right-wing positions, and then wait for the media's tendency to give both sides of any issue equal weight.  Consider the way the debates on gun control and tax policy have shifted; the NRA and Grover Norquist have successfully taken any discussion of centrist, let alone liberal, gun or tax policy off the table... and over time their positions became 'conservative' rather than 'extreme.'

This unconscious leveling of the playing field that goes on during policy evaluation also occurs when we perceive leaders. Just by the nature of there being a two-way contest, we tend to see equality in competence where it shouldn't exist (see the 2008 Vice Presidential debate). Our inability to fold on a 4:1 ratio, to separate the electoral wheat from the chaff, leads to our inability to separate jokers from real leaders in general elections.

Democrats, and many independents, have so far found the Republican primary campaign hilarious. From Rick Perry's 'oops' debacle about cutting government agencies to Mitt Romney's 'I love lamp' moment about the state of Michigan, there has been plenty to laugh about. Looking past the gaffes, there are a number of actual policies advocated by the current field (like Newt Gingrich's moon colony) that are equally laughable. Together, these have culminated in the recent attempt to get Democrats to vote in the Republican primaries.  Dubbed 'Operation Hilarity,' it alludes to the copious amounts of new material the candidates have generated for Jon Stewart.  But the humor in this year's GOP race is dangerous -- it unconsciously moves the goal posts as to what is and isn't "presidential."

Any time you hear someone invoke 'lowered expectations' for a candidate remind them of the trap they are falling into. We should never have to lower our expectations, or shift our opinions, in order to accommodate a bad politician; our political class should be producing better leaders for us to choose from.  And that's no joke. Read the rest of this post...

Cato to Koch: We're already providing "intellectual ammunition" that Americans for Prosperity can use

Last addition to the Koch-on-Cato violence story, until there's newer news.

From a good background article by Dave Weigel, a very reasonable reporter with great sources, comes this exchange between David Koch and Bob Levy, chairman of the Cato board of directors.

(Remember, the Koch Bros are in the process of stacking the Cato board to assert complete and direct control. Bob Levy and Cato co-founder/president Edward Crane are in the anti-Koch resistance.)

Weigel (my emphases and some editorial comments):

In early November, David Koch met with Bob Levy, chairman of Cato’s board of directors, at Dulles International Airport. They were joined by Richard Fink, Koch's chief adviser, and Kevin Gentry, a vice president of Charles Koch’s charitable foundation who’d been put on Cato’s board of directors. (Former Americans for Prosperity President Nancy Pfotenhauer had joined the board after the same meeting.)

“They [David Koch, Fink, Gentry, Pfotenhauer] said that a principle goal was to defeat Barack Obama,” remembered Levy. “The way David [Koch] put it was, ‘We would like you to provide intellectual ammunition that we can then use at Americans for Prosperity and our allied organizations.’ AFP and others would apply Cato's work to advance their electoral goals.”

Levy asked them: “What gives you the impression that [Cato isn’t] providing intellectual ammunition?” He says now: "I never got a satisfactory answer. The only answer that makes sense was that Cato needed to be more responsive to their needs. We would take closer marching orders. That’s totally contrary to what we perceive the function of Cato be.”

Gentry and Pfotenhauer were the Koch "operatives" the Koch Bros placed on the Cato board at the end of last year — contemporaneous with the meeting described above. (The term "operatives" was used by both Levy and Cato fellow Jerry Taylor, as we noted here.)

What you should notice — In essence, when asked to be the intellectual water carrier (or "ammo-shop") for a Koch-funded political campaign, Cato board chair Bob Levy did not say, "Sorry, we're intellectually neutral; we don't do politics. We go where the libertarian sunshine leads us."

What the Cato chairman actually said was (again):

“What gives you the impression that [Cato isn’t already] providing intellectual ammunition [for your political campaign]?”

Is there any other way to read that story, except as a client prince saying they're already on board?

If so, can we stop pretending that Cato is always and everywhere intellectually honest? We can quote them as calling themselves the libertarian "gold standard" all we want. That just passes on their branding.

When Levy met Koch at the airport, it was, "Please, boss, don't take away our "freedom." We're already doing what you want."

GP Read the rest of this post...

AOL pulls advertising from Limbaugh, 8th to walk

Huffington Post's Laura Bassett and Ryan Grim:

AOL, the parent company of The Huffington Post, has become the eighth advertiser to pulls its money from Rush Limbaugh's syndicated radio program since he called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who spoke out in favor of contraception coverage, a "sl-t" last week.

"At AOL one of our core values is that we act with integrity," said Maureen Sullivan, an AOL spokeswoman. "We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh’s comments are not in line with our values. As a result we have made the decision to suspend advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Radio show."

Read the rest of this post...

Limbaugh "sl-t" Sandra Fluke questions Limbaugh apology

The Georgetown Law student who Rush Limbaugh called a "sl-t" is on ABC's The View right now, and she pretty much just rejected Rush Limbaugh's "apology." She quoted his statement that his words were "poorly chosen" and asked people if his words were simply "poorly chosen." She told audience that he insulted her and the women of Georgetown 53 times over 3 days, and that he never apologized to the women of Georgetown. This was not just one poorly chosen word.

She's really quite good. Lesson learned: Don't go after students who go to a good law school.

This scandal isn't going away. I thought it might. But with the new AP story that a 7th advertiser has dropped Limbaugh's show, the media is still clearly interested in covering this.

Folks are waiting to hear who today's advertisers are on his show before contacting them as well. Stay tuned. Read the rest of this post...

7th advertiser drops Limbaugh

AP:

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

The six other advertisers that say they have pulled ads from his show are mortgage lender Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc., online data backup service provider Carbonite and online legal document services company LegalZoom.

ClearChannel, that hosts Limbaugh, says it defends Rush's right to free speech. Really? So we can expect a David Duke radio show sometime soon on ClearChannel as well? Read the rest of this post...

More on Cato—Koch Bros want to "transform our Institute into an intellectual ammo-shop for American for Prosperity"

The story of the Koch Bros "hostile takeover" of the Cato Institute has attracted some telling leaks.

In our first post on this story, we noted (new emphasis supplied):

But why a lawsuit at all, you ask? Why does it matter? No one knows for sure, but here's one possibility, from yet a third Post story, quoting Cato board chair Bob Levy (who may or may not be right):

Cato’s board chairman, Bob Levy, said in an interview that the Koch brothers, who have the power to appoint half of the board, have been choosing “Koch operatives” for [board] members, with an eye to push Cato toward support of the Republican Party.

“None of the new directors, with the exception of one, has a reputation as a libertarian,” Levy said. “There are a lot of murky areas between actively supporting candidates and what Cato does now, which is working on issues.”

It turns out that Cato insiders think Levy is right. We now have more about those "new directors." Via Jonathan Adler (note, not journalist Jonathan Alter) at the Volokhov Conspiracy, we get new insider info from Jerry Taylor, a noted Cato Senior Fellow.

Keep in mind, as you read the following, that Cato has four co-equal owners — Charles Koch (co-founder), David Koch, Edward Crane (co-founder & Cato president), and the widow of a man who just died (whose ownership of Cato shares is now disputed by the Kochs). If you subtract the widow from the ownership-voting, the Kochs have a 2/3 controlling interest in Cato.

Also keep in mind that owners are not the same as board members — owners appoint board members. As of last month, Charles Koch, a Cato founder, did not sit on the board.

Now the news — first from Adler's introduction (my emphasis and some reparagraphing throughout):

My friend Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, offered me his perspective on the Koch-Cato dispute. Jerry’s obviously sympathetic to Cato President Ed Crane, but he also offers a fair amount of detail about recent events, including recent changes to the Cato Institute’s Board of Directors — changes that occurred last Thursday and I have yet to see reported in the press.

And this from Jerry Taylor, the Cato fellow, as quoted by Adler:

Last year, [the Koch brothers] used their shares to place two of their operatives – Kevin Gentry and Nancy Pfotenhauer [her] – on our board against the wishes of every single board member save for David Koch.

Last Thursday, they used their shares to force another four new board members on us (the most that their shares would allow at any given meeting); Charles Koch, Ted Olson (hired council for Koch Industries), Preston Marshall (the largest shareholder of Koch Industries save for Charles and David), and Andrew Napolitano (a frequent speaker at Koch-sponsored events). Those four – who had not previously been involved with Cato either financially or organizationally – were likewise opposed by every member of our board save for Gentry, Pfotenhauer, and David Koch.

To make room for these Koch operatives, we were forced to remove four long-time, active board members, two of whom were our biggest donors. At this moment, the Kochs now control seven of our 16 board seats, two short of outright control.

It's a coup. Let's pause here; read that list of the latest new board members again. It includes:

        ▪ The second Koch brother (no surprise)
        ▪ A big-money Koch investor (any relation?)
        ▪ A frequent speaker at Koch events
        ▪ "Ted Olson" (This Ted Olson? Both are lawyers.)

Why is this happening? Back to Cato's Jerry Taylor:

Why are they forcing out Cato board members, all strong, principled libertarians who have been heavily involved with Cato – financially and organizationally – for years?

The answer was given in early November of last year when David Koch, Richard Fink (he of many Koch hats), and Kevin Gentry met with Cato board chairman Bob Levy. They told Bob that they intended to use their board majority to remove Ed Crane from Cato and transform our Institute into an intellectual ammo-shop for American for Prosperity and other allied (presumably, Koch-controlled) organizations.

I would call that confirmation of what we speculated earlier:

[T]he Billionaire Coup has reached a stage where it's no longer a semi-loose alliance between the Movement Conservative Project and the Republican Party, with friendly allied interests like "libertarianism" hanging in the satellite circles.

It means that one of the prime forces in the Billionaire Coup is starting to combine its diverse organs into a larger singularity, one where there's little discernible difference between something called a "libertarian think tank" and something called the "Republican party."

Looks like the satellite — the "client state" in our earlier article — is putting up a fuss. (Good luck with that.)

I would even add that the mother-ship won't be the Republican Party, but Americans For Prosperity — that's the organ through which the Koch Bros seem to be operating these days. The Republican Party looks more and more like just another O&O;, a wholly-controlled subsidiary staffed with retainers.

(Any Jimmy Olsen out there want to look into control of the Koch Bros' Mercatus Center, nominally at George Mason University? Might just be the same story there.)

Great piece by Adler, with a lot more information in it. If this fascinates you as it does me, please do head on over. He's become a go-to guy for this stuff.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Ohio GOP governor turns down federal disaster aid for tornado destruction

Ohio's GOP governor, a former rabid Republican congressman, John Kasich, is definitely playing politics, and I wouldn't put it past him to be doing anything he can to keep the economy from growing until after the election.

You see, as Paul Krugman wrote in yesterday's NYT, drastic cuts in state and local spending may be causing an additional 1.5% points of unemployment.  When Kasich turns downs federal money, he forces local towns to either spend the money themselves (money they don't have), or not spend anything at all - either way, it takes money out of the economy that otherwise could be there.  And with interest rates at historic laws, a lot of economists think it's nuts not to be borrowing (since it can be paid back at next to no interest).

The next time Kasich says he has to cut some important state services because of the tight budget, remember why the budget is tight.

Interestingly, the Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, is welcoming FEMA's manpower assist, but so far has not made a federal disaster declaration request.  Daniels is holding off, he says, until the state conducts its own damage assessment. Read the rest of this post...

Romney and Santorum tie in new Ohio poll

This Tuesday is Super Tuesday. From the NYT:

Heading into Super Tuesday’s contests, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney remain neck and neck in the major battleground state of Ohio, while Newt Gingrich leads in his native state of Georgia, according to polls released on Sunday.

In Virginia, where Mr. Romney and Ron Paul are the only candidates on the ballot, Mr. Romney has a large advantage.

Read the rest of this post...