Daily Kos' dishonest attacks on Rush Limbaugh

Picture from the Daily Kos
The Daily Kos is claiming that Rush Limbaugh made a "non-apology" for calling Ms. Sandra Fluke a "slut." Yet, this is what Limbaugh posted on Saturday: "My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices." Sandra Fluke apparently is refusing this apology, which is her right, but Daily Kos' statement is bizarre. Unlike some Democrat apologies which have left an escape clause in their apologies stating that they are apologizing if anyone was offended by what was said or happened, Rush said that what he said was wrong.

A couple of advertisers had pulled their ads over the weekend. More have done so now. They take a lot of pride in advertisers pulling their ads: Quicken Loans, mattress retailers Sleep Train and Sleep Number, software maker Citrix Systems Inc., online legal document services company LegalZoom, Pro-Flowers, and Carbonite.

UPDATE: NOW calls on Rush Limbaugh to be fired.

When liberal radio host Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a slut last May, CNN did not host the president of NOW to call for his termination at MSNBC. In fact, the network covered the outrage over Limbaugh's smear of Sandra Fluke far more than Ed Schultz's rant last May. A Nexis search revealed 35 hits for CNN's coverage of Limbaugh's "slut" remark since March 1, versus just four reports on Schultz in the week following his comment. [Video below the break.]

And amidst the Schultz coverage, CNN's female news anchor Randi Kaye even questioned the virulence of Schultz's smear, saying that there are "mixed interpretations" of the word "slut." . . .

Just last year, Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a "Dumb Twat," but there were no similar calls for him being fired.

UPDATE: Apparently Bill Maher has gone much further than that calling women: 'boobs,' 'bimbos,' 'c*nt'...

Former White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton, the man who runs Obama's super PAC, did not reply when asked if he will be returning Maher's $1 million donation.

Rush Limbaugh discusses my op-ed "A 'Recovery' Like No Other"

Rush discusses my recent op-ed entitled "A 'Recovery' Like No Other" this way:

RUSH: Once again, ladies and gentlemen, it's left to me, El Rushbo, for tough economic truth. Tough love, tough of economic truth. John Lott Jr.: "A 'Recovery' Like No Other." Now, this was posted as an editorial on Fox News if anybody wants to look for it. You can also go to John Lott's website where there's more discussion of this phenomenon of "temporary help service." Mr. Lott says, "This is the first entirely 'temporary help service' job recovery. Our current 'recovery' might be in its seventeenth month, but the few new private sector jobs have come from companies temporarily hiring staff on a contract basis. What were once jobs reserved for people hired to cover seasonal demand or permanent employees on sick leave have become the standard employment for many workers.

"Companies simply don't want the risk of hiring workers that they might soon have to get rid of." Now, that's the key, and I'm gonna 'splain why here in just a second. "Companies simply don't want the risk of hiring workers that they might soon have to get rid of. Since the recovery started in June 2009," supposedly; we'll just go with the flow here since this is his piece, "the total number of private sector jobs has increased by 203,000. But these weren't 'regular,' permanent jobs. Indeed, permanent private sector..." in the recovery. Are you listening? "[P]ermanent private sector jobs fell by 257,000. ... The explanation behind temporary job creation is pretty simple: uncertainty."

Uncertainty. "Companies don't want to make longer-term commitments if they don't know what the next couple of years will look like," and by the way, two more years of these tax rates, that's not gonna help somebody make a five-year business plan, which is what they do. "Companies don't want to make longer-term commitments if they don't know what the next couple of years will look like. New regulations are being imposed on companies, be it health care, finance, the environment, and the other areas," as Obama's path of destruction widens and deepens. There you have it: Uncertainty. They have to stay in business. They are doing what they have to to stay in business. How about this recovery?

We got this big news here today: Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits, AP says! "Oh, goody goody goody!" Yeah, well, we've lost 257,000 private sector jobs since the recovery began. Many new jobs are temporary. Why hire somebody and have to let 'em go? What a mess that is. The market responds to realities. Temporary service agencies have sprung up because entrepreneurs have sensed this is how companies will fill their employment needs. It's not because anybody's evil. It's not because anybody is mean. They have to stay in business. They have to deal with the circumstances that are, and those are circumstances being dictated to and by a swath of destruction in the private sector unlike we've ever seen -- authored, instituted, implemented by Barack Obama.

Now, Mr. Lott, John Lott Jr., points out a truly bizarre phenomenon: "A 9.8 percent unemployment rate that is higher than when the recovery [supposedly] began," and a two-year extension of the Bush tax rates is not gonna change this. It won't give any company any sense of confidence. Why hire somebody for two years and have to pay 'em unemployment benefits for three? Obama's not doing anything anybody any favors here. As I say, if I'm a Republican in the Congress, and I hear Obama say, "My presidency hinges on this," I say, "Bye-bye!"

As a loyal Rush listener for many years, I have a membership at Rush 24/7 and get the pod casts. I assume that it is OK for me to provide the short segment that he did when he read my piece. The piece is available here as an .mov file.

Wikipedia Claims that Rush Limbaugh is Dead

Wikipedia the always trusted news source (see here and here) had the news that Rush Limbaugh had died yesterday.

Looks like the folks at Wikipedia were prepared for the worst when it came to Rush Limbaugh. Actually they were a little too well prepared.

Shortly after the news broke that the conservative political radio talk show host was hospitalized, Wikipedia updated his page – and pronounced him dead. . . .

Beware of using Wikipedia, CNN and MSNBC should be sorry they used it

At about 1:20 into the clip CNN's Rick Sanchez falsely claims that Rush Limbaugh said: "Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark." Of course, CNN uses a picture of Rush at what must have been his highest weight level ever, assuming that the picture wasn't also doctored.



At the very end of this clip, Rachel Maddow makes this claim when talking about Rush Limbaugh. Most of this clip is attacking Newt Gingrinch for his comments on Sonya Sotomayor saying that "a wise Latina woman with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white man." Maddow doesn't give a very good discussion of Newt's statement.

MADDOW: When you get called racist by the guy who says the assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. should get the Medal of Honor, consider yourself honored. Also, nauseated.

The above clip from MSNBC contains such statements as:

Rush Limbaugh is an unreconstructed racist. They don't want an owner who has said that slavery was a good thing because it made the streets safer.

[Limbaugh's] open publicly stated contempt for people with dark skin.

The media's source for these quotes? Wikipedia. The original posting has been corrected, but James Taranto has pointed to this site which recorded them.

African Americans

I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.[3/14/03]

Now this just blows me away

Was there any excrement, any shamelessness in any form, above all in cultural life, in which at least one African-American would not have been involved? As soon as one even carefully cut into such an abscess, one found, like maggots in a decaying body, often blinded by the sudden light, an African-American. [2/21/03]

James Earl Ray is the man who killed Martin Luther King Jr.

You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed. [4/23/98]

Arabs

As I said yesterday, truce is an old Arabic word. Goes way, way back in Islamic-Arabic culture, and it means, “We will get you later.” [4/16/04]

If Limbaugh were to sue CNN and MSNBC, his removal from the St. Louis Rams bid would let him claim some damages. Others who have attacked Rush over these false quotes include the Atlantic (here and here)

Kerry Picket posted this next video and text over at the Washington Times Water Cooler.



BILL O'REILLY: The reason that Limbaugh is not going to be able to buy into the NFL is because a bunch of made-up stuff became legend, and he got hammered.

WARREN BALLANTINE: OK, we won't look at the made-up stuff. Let's look at him playing "Barack The Magic Negro", and we're going to say that's just funny, that's just a joke, that's not racial either. It is racial to real black people.

JUAN WILLIAMS: Hey Warren, you were saying my argument was a red herring. Maybe you should do some research, go back and find out that it was an article written by a black person, headlined "Barack The Magic Negro."

BALLANTINE: He made it a song and played it on his show.

WILLIAMS: So what? He was making fun of it.

BALLANTINE: You can go back to the porch, Juan. You can go back. It's OK.

O'REILLY: All right guys: good debate, good-spirited debate.

UPDATE: MSNBC Admits: ‘Unable to Verify’ False Limbaugh Quote; No Retraction or Apology