Bill Clinton "worst ever"? Not even close : the lessons of unsanitized presidential history

We've heard Donald Trump claim that Hillary shouldn't be president because Bill Clinton had infidelities.  To be specific, Trump claims Bill Clinton was a sexual predator, the worst in the history of the presidency.  Specifically per the AP, Trump said this

 "But Bill Clinton has sexually assaulted innocent women and Hillary Clinton was attacking those women viciously." "Bill Clinton was the worst abuser of women to ever sit in the Oval Office. He was a predator,"

There is no credible evidence that Hillary ever attacked these women, much less viciously.  She did stand by Bill through rough going, but that is arguably evidence commitment to traditional marriage, not of abuse of anyone else.

But as to the claims against Bill Clinton, I would argue that as sexual escapades in the White House go, he's been among the less egregious, not the worst.  More on that below, but first an examination of the allegations against "President Bubba".

To get specific, Bill Clinton had five formal allegations of sexual misconduct; the claims of Juanita Broadderick, Kathleen Willey, and Paula Jones, have not been established.  They exist as accusations of dubious authenticity, given Broadderick and Willey both testified under oath that Clinton never made unwanted advances.  Further Willey had a history of false accusations, which included telling a boyfriend she was pregnant, when she was not, and then claiming a miscarriage that she didn't have.  Linda Tripp of Monica Lewinsky scandal fame claimed it was Willey who was obsessed from day 1 with seducing the President.

Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky both appeared to have had some kind of sexual relationships but not apparently coitus with Lewinsky.  Bill Clinton admitted to a one time sexual relationship with Flowers. 

Gennifer Flowers used her notoriety for profit, to the tune of $500,000.  All of the women who have appeared with Donald Trump prior to his second debate, both alleged victims of Bill Clinton, and a very questionable rape victim, were paid to do so, to the tune of $2,5000 each, and their stories conflict with prior accounts of events, including Grand Jury testimony under oath.

Hillary has also been accused of laughing at the alleged victim of a rape case, presumably thereby abusing HER,  where she had no option out of defending the accused rapist, whom she got a plea deal.  She did laugh at the botched case of the prosecution, and she was recorded laughing at the unreliability of polygraph testing, which showed the accused rapist to be innocent.  But she did NOT laugh at the victim.  Further complicating the rape case, the 12 year old victim had consensual sex with a 15 year old boy prior to the accused rape, and had previously made false accusations of bodily attacks.

Hillary Clinton tried to get out of defending her client, but she got a good outcome for her client (a plea deal, not an acquittal)  because he passed a polygraph test, and because of lack of evidence and mishandling of evidence by the prosecution.  It was her duty as a defense attorney to do so; she did her job. The victim previously supported the defense role of Hillary before it became profitable to object to her.

In contrast so far as can be established, there are more women who have credibly come forward to make accusations against Trump, and NONE of them have been paid to do so, and none of them have been credibly contradicted by others in defense of Trump, except by Trump himself who makes a highly suspect denial, much less contradicted themselves.

In contrast Bill Clinton, who turned 70 this past August,  has had no sex scandals since Monica Lewinsky back in the 1990s.  Trump, who also turned 70 this past June, has had sex scandals pretty much right up until he decided to run for President, which he announced in 2015.  These include a law suit for multiple violent rapes of a 13 year old, to other accusations of sexual assault and sexual harassment.  Trump's accusations are distinctive in how consistently they are not consensual - although he has had consensual affairs as well.  He admits to having cheated on Ivana, his first wife, with Marla Maples, his second wife, and to having cheated on Maples with multiple women, including his third wife.  He has been recorded multiple times admitting to have at least attempted to cheat on Melania Trump his third wife.

Putting Bill Clinton's conduct in context, and at the same time putting the claims that Hillary Clinton jeopardized the security of the country with her email problems, I offer you a few examples of bad presidential conduct. Richard Nixon - yes, Tricky Dicky - had an ongoing affair with a Communist Chinese woman with close ties to Chinese Generals.  MI-6 recorded his sex-capades and head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover got his own dirt on Dick, and used it to blackmail him.  Trump campaign staffer and key adviser to Donald Trump was in the Nixon White House and is one of those who confirm the story.  Both JFK and Gerald Ford had affairs with an East German Communist spy, by the name of Ellen Rometsch, with both being allegedly blackmailed, again by J. Edgar Hoover. Ford was not president at the time, but allegedly was blackmailed for information from the Warren Commission on the JFK assassination.  JFK was far more of a sexual predator and serial philanderer than Bill Clinton, including alleged sexual impropriety with interns. Ronald Reagan had a credible accusation of rape while president as well - but that was while he was Screen Actors Guild president, not US president.

Arguably black mail of the president is a far greater danger to the security of the United States than a private email server with very low level information on it.  And if one takes a look at the totality of presidential history when it comes to inappropriate sexual conduct, there are few who pass scrutiny.  George Washington has been credibly accused of having a long term sexual relationship with a slave named Venus and a speculative one with a certain Mrs. Fairfax.  Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings has been established by DNA evidence, and possibly began when she was as young as 16.  This is not unique to recent presidents.  The founding fathers had more than their fair share of bastards. 

Looking at presidents from WW II forward, the only apparent cases where there were no credible accusations of infidelity or sexual misconduct, before, during or after their presidency were Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman.  Both Bushes appear to have had affairs - more than one, and Dubya was accused of rape. Looking back before WW II across the 19th century, there not only heterosexual affairs, some with presidential bastard offspring, there were rumors of homosexual relationships attributed (at different times in history) to both presidents Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan.

So, no, Bill Clinton is FAR from the worst president in terms of keeping himself safely in his pants, and he seems considerably less bad in that regard than the conduct of Donald Trump, past and recent past if not present.  That is IF you look at factual histories of our presidents and their most private conduct.  Just a word to the wise, before you take a look at our unsanitized history - you will NOT be able to look at Mount Rushmore, or stamps with presidents on them, or money, quite the same way again afterwards.

Hillary and the 2A came up in the 3rd presidential debate

I have long contended that unless and until we have consensus by proof of what is and is not factual, we won't have any functional unity.  I don't want to see us continue to become increasingly dysfunctional as a nation.

Lies fuel extremism.  Lies fuel fears.  Both quotes in the graphic below are FALSE.

I fact checked the graphic below after finding it on the FB page of someone who expressed an alarming degree of hatred for Hillary.  I am confident that the reasons this person has for his emotions are ALL as false as the image below, which I took from his FB page.

Images like this keep popping up on right wing posts on social media. It is false. But it goes a long way towards explaining the poorly informed right wing response of boos when Hillary CORRECTLY stated her FACTUAL position on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution -- a document she knows well and understands thoroughly.

We have a serious problem with gun violence; our rates are 25 times higher, especially gun violence involving either child victims and/or child shooters.  So long as one side of the issue refuses to be factually accurate, we can't do anything to successfully resolve this public health issue.



Here is what is wrong with the above image; it is entirely FAKE. Because conservatives LIE when the facts are not on their side; and this is one more example of it.

From Politifact Iowa:

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton explicitly stated her plans to "shut down" the National Rifle Association and expressed hope at banning handguns in an interview with The Des Moines Register last summer. At least, that’s according to a viral image that first cropped up on an anti-Clinton Tumblr blog and has been shared widely on Facebook. "I will get the NRA shut down for good if I become president. If we can ban handguns, we will do it," the post quotes Clinton as telling the Register on Aug. 8, 2015.
But here’s the thing: The quote is wholly fabricated. Clinton was never quoted in the Register making that statement, and it appears she has not made such a statement anywhere else.
Clinton campaigned heavily in Iowa throughout the summer and fall of 2015, and Register reporters and the paper’s editorial board interviewed her several times. But she was not in Iowa on Aug. 8, when she allegedly made the statement. Clinton’s first visit to Iowa in the month of August occurred on Aug. 14, followed by public events on Aug. 15 and Aug. 26.
A review of the Register’s archives show Clinton was neither interviewed nor quoted directly on Aug. 8 or in the days immediately following.
Clinton did make several statements regarding gun control on the Iowa campaign trail that were covered by the Register. In all of them, she laid out an agenda that calls for broader background-check requirements, including sales at gun shows, as well as stronger measures to prevent gun purchases by domestic abusers and people with serious mental health problems.
"I'm going to speak out against the uncontrollable use of guns in our country because I believe we can do better than that," Clinton said in Iowa in July. "A majority of Americans and a majority of gun owners agree with universal background checks to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people who are mentally unstable and even terrorists."
On Aug. 26 in Ankeny, she responded to the on-air murders of a news crew in Virginia:
"We've got to do something. It's a very difficult political issue. But we are smart enough, compassionate enough to balance legitimate Second Amendment rights concerns with preventive measures and control measures, so whatever motivated this murderer ... we will not see more needless, senseless deaths," she said.
She went on,  "If guns weren't so readily available, if we had universal background checks, if we could put some time out between the person who got fired, or domestic abuse, or whatever other motivation ... maybe we could prevent this kind of carnage."
On Oct. 6, she described her views again, in response to a mass shooting in Oregon: "I feel like this is unfinished business in our country, and I am very determined that we are going to try to bring some sanity back, so that people's Second Amendment rights are protected — but they are not absolute, the way the NRA wants them to be," Clinton said at an event in Davenport. "There are common-sense ways to make sure people are not using guns to commit mass murders."
Gun control came up again at an event in Sioux City on Dec. 4, after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. At that time, she expressed support for banning gun sales to people on federal "no-fly" lists.
"I think we've got to be more willing to start imposing these kinds of gun-safety measures," Clinton said. "I'm certainly going to continue advocating for them."
Internet searches for the quote found on the image refer only to the image itself — not to any original reporting from the Des Moines Register, another news outlet or to raw audio or video. Evidence of the quote does not appear to exist beyond what was originally posted on Tumblr.

And from separate fact checking at Politifact.com (which I also verified by the defacto George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon):

[Face Book Meme, Feb. 16, 2015] Say George Washington said that "when government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern." — Facebook posts on Monday, February 16th, 2015 in a meme on social media Did George Washington offer support for individual gun rights, as meme says? False Facebook posts Say George Washington said that "when government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern." — Facebook posts on Monday, February 16th, 2015 in a meme on social media Did George Washington offer support for individual gun rights, as meme says? By Audrey Bowler on Friday, February 20th, 2015 at 8:56 a.m.
A reader sent us this meme about George Washington and gun rights. Did the first president really say that? Would George Washington have been an ally to modern-day gun-rights groups? A social-media meme suggests that he would have. Around the time of Washington’s 282nd birthday, a reader sent us the meme, which includes a painting of Washington and a quote purportedly written or uttered by the nation’s first president: "When government takes away citizens’ right to bear arms it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government’s right to govern."
But are those really Washington’s words? We contacted Edward Lengel, editor in chief of the Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia. He said "there is no evidence that Washington ever wrote or said these words, or any like them."
Lengel cautioned that it’s impossible to prove a negative, but he added that he’s "as certain as he can be" that the quote did not originate from George Washington. This is not the first time a similar claim has popped onto our radar screen. In December 2012, PolitiFact Texas rated False a claim made two days after the Newtown elementary school shooting.
When U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, appeared on Fox News Sunday, he was asked why he believed ordinary Americans should be able to buy semi-automatic weapons designed for military use. Gohmert answered in part, "For the reason George Washington said a free people should be an armed people. It ensures against the tyranny of the government." PolitiFact Texas contacted Gohmert’s office to seek details on the Washington quotation but didn’t hear back. The closest statement they could find was one Washington made in his first State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1790: "A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined." The academic consensus is that Washington was referring to a trained militia to defend the new nation, rather than anticipating citizens seeking to head off perceived governmental tyranny. Ron Chernow, whose Washington: A Life won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for biography, told PolitiFact Texas that Washington was "talking about national defense policy, not individuals arming themselves, and the need for national self-sufficiency in creating military supplies." Some post-Revolutionary lawmakers did expect citizens to own firearms, but Washington does not appear to have been among them, experts said. "The idea of resistance to tyranny being dependent on a nation of gun-wielding individuals acting at their own behest or even on local initiative would have been anathema to Washington," Lengel told PolitiFact Texas. "Indeed, during the (Revolutionary) war he very frequently lamented the crimes carried out by armed civilians or undisciplined militia against their unarmed neighbors. The solution to these crimes, as he understood it, was to increase the power of the government and the army to prevent and punish them -- not to put more guns in the hands of civilians." Indeed, during the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, "citizens of Western Pennsylvania rose up to fight a new tax on the whiskey they produced," said Mary Thompson, research historian at Washington’s Virginia home, Mount Vernon. Washington was "concerned that success by the rebels would lead to a diminishment of the central/federal government," and directed state militias to counter the insurrection -- "citizen-soldiers," she said, "acting on behalf of the government against their fellow citizens."

Chimps, Chumps, Nukes and Drumpf: the Goldwater rule

It's back!

In the 1964 election, GOP candidate Barry Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson.  LBJ won by a landslide, with Goldwater winning only the state of Arizona and the deep southern former confederacy states.  Current GOP candidate has been striving apparently to repeat or exceed / 'trump' that bad performance in the general election in November 2016.

One of the fears about Goldwater who, like Trump, opposed civil rights legislation, was that he was also too dangerous in temperament to entrust with nukes, a concern which is again in the public square as regards Donald Trump.  And in response the APA has reiterated the Goldwater rule.

The Goldwater supporters espoused the slogan, "in your heart you know he is right", while opponents responded with "in your guts you know he's nuts".  The issue of mental health was a real one, in spite of the use of a casual slang term used to stigmatize real mental illness.  It appears to be a serious concern again.

It is worth noting, that Trump is now appearing to lose in both Arizona and the deep south, per the current polls.  The last democrat to win in Arizona and in some southern states was Bill Clinton.

At the time, the American  Psychiatric Association felt that it was necessary to issue what became known as the Goldwater rule, a rule in response to psychiatrists expressing negative opinions on the mental state of presidential nominee Goldwater in a magazine of the day.  Goldwater sued and wona law suit regarding the article.

The rule reads:

On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.

The television ad below, which did not run very widely at all, aired on September 7th, 1964, underlining that concern about temperament.  The timing is not all that different from the rising concerns about Trump's erratic temperament problems.



A local conservative blogger and propaganda pusher, Mitch Berg, some years ago wrote in a rant that even a chimp who was consistent with conservative thinking and policies would be more successful and more acceptable to conservatives than any liberal. It appears he got the essence of his wish in the candidacy of Trump, supported by the dumbed down extreme right that is all that really remains of the old GOP after they drove out the moderate and more liberal members, and embraced the crazy evangelical right and the more militant racists and other extremists, like the militias and sovereign citizens.  Instead of an actual chimp, the chumps, aka Trumpanzees, on the right have primaried Donald Trump into the position of nominee, along with a young earth and creationist promoting unpopular governor, Mike Pence as Veep. 

Even Goldwater rejected the crazy evangelicals, as he demonstrated with this quote:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

Bonus points if any of you can remember who Goldwater's VP was, or are familiar with his liberal media figure daughter.

It is unlikely that either Trump or Pence can carry their home states of New York or Indiana in the general election, much less Goldwater's home state of Arizona apparently.  The duo of dumb appear to be losing steadily, but it is still early days, giving them even more time to make unforced errors that will appeal to the chump base.  Extremism about nukes, about minorities, anti-immigrants, theocracy, etc. seems to be a cyclical problem for the right which cannot be stopped or corrected until they themselves self-destruct.

With Trump, and his supporters, the countdown has begun. Again.

GOP Bigots Lie AGAIN about history, and about banning Muslims

Snopes debunked this claim.

Carter, briefly, denied visas on the basis of nationality, not religion, strictly during the hostage crisis. At the same time, he was allowing in many asylum seekers from Iran, including a number of non-Muslim Iranians, but also those who were Muslim Sunnis, seeking refuge from Shia Muslim persecution.

The ban was NEVER religious based, as is the ban proposed by Donald Trump.

As so often happens, from conservatives, who years after the fact try to revise history to put themselves in a better light (civil rights history is just one example), the right is now trying to link themselves to humanitarian Jimmy Carter, winner of the Nobel Peace prize for his work with the leaders of Israel and Egypt, with the Camp David accords. Those accords have held for more than 30 years, and appear likely to be in effect for some time to come.

Clearly Carter held nothing like the anti-Muslim positions and policies advocated by Donald Trump. It is a mark of their innate sense of shame, and fear of criticism and charges of intolerance and bigotry that make conservatives so desperate they are trying to leverage their reputations using Carter.

No one, not liberal or conservative at the time called Carter a racist, because he so clearly was nothing of the kind.  The same cannot be said of Trump or far too many of his supporters who are ignorant bigots.

Donald Trump is P.T. Barnum

The snake-oil Donald Trump really is only one note. 

Trump brings people into his camp by promising that he’s going the help defend “them”, those who have been looked over or disenfranchised by the movement of the nation away from caring about the middle-class.  He says he’s self-funded and so “not for sale.” 

Now of course, he’s taking money from big money donors, so I guess the “not for sale thing” is gone.  He's also trying to separate small money donors from their cash.

Over his entire career, Trump is exactly the type of Wall Street elitist who was raised in opulence; and he has been advocating for the tax changes, trade changes, etc. that made it easy and profitable for the elites to move jobs away.  Even more importantly, his solution to “bring back” jobs it to reduce wages for manufacturing sector workers so that we can be “competitive” with workers in places where the standard of living is both far cheaper and FAR below what the workers in the US, including our parents, worked hard to attain and so enjoyed for decades and expected to pass on to us. 
 
The bottom line of the economics landscape of the past 35 years has been that the rich cut wages but didn’t cut prices and instead pocketed the difference.  Any class on Macro-Economics will tell you that is a recipe for disaster as consumption power will fall over time while the wealth at the top will create an “asset bubble” (e.g. the real estate bubble).  

Those bubbles historically ALWAYS burst, in boom / bust cycles, and the economy suffers disastrous periods of volatile and violent upheaval where jobs are lost by the millions and savings and other asset accumulation is destroyed.  It is a form of calculated wealth extraction, redistributing that wealth to the already-wealthy.

Trump has been all-too-happy to take advantage of those changes. 

He’s employed thousands of meagerly-paid workers in China to make his shirts, ties, and the like.  He seeks to hide behind lawsuits to avoid having it disclosed that he pays nearly nothing in taxes and gives LESS to charity in actual cash out ofhis pocket – in short, he’s been an advocate for the exact changes he now says he opposes and opposed the changes he now says he’d make.   

So, do you believe a guy who only has ever acted to enrich himself, including doing things which were allegedly illegal, when he says he stands for you?   

Even if you do, do you seriously think chasing wages down the rabbit hole and making our workers live on the same meager salaries that are paid in Indonesia is what you think of when you hear him say he will “Making America” great? 

Great for him I guess, but not for you.

Barnum was famously quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute."  The question is, are you a sucker?  Do you buy the crap coming from this man, a man who has made a career of (over)promising solutions in which EVERYONE is going to win, only to have those promises prove hollow and the only one who won was Trump as he pocked his millions, walking away laughing, shielded by our favorable corporate bankruptcy laws.

There is no question the west needs to figure out how to better manage the transition toward a more global economy, there is no question that simply letting the rich keep prices high while slashing jobs and wages is not working and will not work, but there is also no question that slashing wages further (Trump’s solution) is no solution and that Donald Trump is selling disaster and a worse life for you.  

Are you a sucker, or do you understand the bearded lady is a fraud?

Rush to Shadenfreude

2003 statue of Humpty Dumpty,
by Minnesota artist Fiebirgir,
on display in Arizona

Almost 7 years ago today, back in June of 2009, I wrote about the resemblance between Rush Limbaugh and Humpty Dumpty.  Not only was there a distinct visual similarity, but the content spewed by Limbaugh was reminiscent of the earlier iteration of Humpty Dumpty, an exploding canon.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."

Used to be, in previous election cycles, anyone who crossed Rush Limbaugh (no matter how well deserved) sooner or later would kiss his ring (or his rear end).  Limbaugh was a king maker.  The majority of references to Limbaugh these days are not about deference to his political influence, but rather like Humpty Dumpty, about his "great fall".

Limbaugh is in professional trouble, trouble in part caused by 2012 candidate Mitt Romney's Bain Capital.  From March 2015:

Today, IHeart CEO Bob Pittman announced the company is closing its San Antonio headquarters. Pittman may never admit the company’s financial problems have anything to do Rush Limbaugh, even though Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and a Sponsor Boycott Petition which contains 125,000 signatures, confirm social media campaigns are working. It should be noted iHeart/Clear Channel picked up quite a bit of their debt via Bain ‘Mitt Romney’ Capitol.

Remember when conservatives wanted us to trust in the wisdom of Romney and his business acumen?  Where did THAT get anyone -- anyone other than those who profited at Bain?  The same claim is made for Trump and HIS business expertise; Trump of course, given his spotty track record of failures and bankruptcies, would be even WORSE than Romney and his Bain cronies for the nation and our economy, both domestic and global.

And from Politico, last month:

...there are signs that all is not well in the Limbaugh radio empire. Because even as his influence is sky high and his dominance at the top of talk radio remains unchallenged, as a business proposition, Limbaugh’s show is on shaky ground. In recent years, Limbaugh has been dropped by several of his long-time affiliates, including some very powerful ones: He’s gone from WABC in New York, WRKO in Boston and KFI in Los Angeles, for example, and has in many cases been moved onto smaller stations with much weaker signals that cover smaller areas.

And from Media Matters this week:

The former Clear Channel network owns 850 radio stations across the country and the syndication rights to right-wing stars such as Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s the company, feasting on the fruits of media deregulation, gorged itself with profits. (It also bullied the music business for years.)
Since then, not so much. And what a brutal ride it’s been for investors:
Clear Channel stock price, January 2000: $90.
Clear Channel stock value, April 2007: $39.
iHeartMedia stock price, July 2011: $8.30.
iHeartMedia stock price at close of yesterday: $1.15.
The company hasn’t reported a profit since 2007. Today, iHeartMedia is busy selling off assets in an effort to shore up its bottom line. “It’s a case of burning your sofa to heat up the house,” Philip Brendel, a credit analyst recently told Bloomberg. “It’s not necessarily a good idea but you’re running out of options.”
The company’s woes date back to the Clear Channel leveraged buyout deal in 2008. It was overseen by private equity giants Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital, once headed by Mitt Romney. Coming just months before the U.S. financial crisis of September 2008, the Clear Channel deal couldn’t have been hatched at a worse time.

That influence appears to have changed, significantly if not suddenly.  Limbaugh is insignificant this election cycle, while conservatives, one after the other - most recently, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida - are sucking up instead to presumptive candidate Donald Trump the way they used to do to Limbaugh.  Limbaugh has conspicuously NOT come out either for OR against Trump, with speculation putting the reason for this as a fear on the part of Limbaugh that he will antagonize his listening audience, who appear split strongly for and against Trump.

We can only presume that the perennially financially strapped Rubio was bought off the way others have been by Trump.   Trump paid off the campaign debt of former rivals Christie and Carson; if not campaign debt, Rubio has been notorious for his perpetual person debt.  Although speculation, it is probable (imho) that money changed hands preceding the change of heart and position by Rubio.

However I can't find any mention of Rubio's capitulation, in spite of the fact that Limbaugh had referred to liking Rubio, and to Marco Rubio as recently as February 2016 with the following, after the Iowa primary: 

"I don’t see Marco Rubio as anything other than a legitimate, full-throated conservative,"

And Limbaugh has been an apologist for Rubio when the Florida senator was taking flak for debate comments.  It has become conspicuous when contrasting Limbaugh's promotion of Rubio and his absence of support for 'the Donald'.  From May of this year:

Pushed by a caller Monday to endorse the presumptive GOP nominee, Limbaugh said: “I think it’s a moot point now. … In the words of a famous and well-known politician: What difference does it make now?”

...The caller wouldn’t let up, saying: “He needs your endorsement! It’s that important! And it’s about time you did it!”
“It’s not what I do,” said the conservative talk-show host, who praised Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in this primary season.

Apparently, like Humpty Dumpty, words mean whatever you want them to mean, and moot actually means self-serving and cowardly.  Or does moot mean it's usual meaning (to the rest of us)?

In United States law, a matter is moot if further legal proceedings with regard to it can have no effect, or events have placed it beyond the reach of the law. Thereby the matter has been deprived of practical significance or rendered purely academic.

Trump, left; Limbaugh, right

But is it moot, because the candidacy is settled.............or moot because it doesn't matter any more in the slightest if Rush Limbaugh is pro or anti-Trump?

Loss of influence, loss of platform to spew toxic opinions, loss of money; it couldn't happen to two more deserving men.  We can indulge in a little shadenfreude over Rush, and look forward to the same thing happening to Trump.