According to ThinkProgress, the bad ship Rush Limbaugh begins its slow swirl down the drain into obscurity, with a total of an even dozen advertisers leaving, and now two radio stations dumping him.
The trend appears to be continuing, he hasn't hit bottom yet.
An interesting aspect to the Rush Limbaugh show is the claim that he has 20 million listeners. Apparently that is an unsubstantiated number that exists only in press releases from the Limbaugh radio show, which, given the most casual and rare acquaintance he demonstrates with facts, makes the number less believable.
Here is the summary from ThinkProgress of the rats, or in this case, the MONEY, that is leaving the Titanic Limbaugh. First the news update/ news flash:
Second radio station drops Limbaugh
Earlier today, a Hawaii radio station announced they would no longer air Rush Limbaugh’s radio show because he “crossed a line of decency.” Now, a second radio station — in Pittsfield, Massachusetts — has said it is no longer going to put up with Limbaugh’s antics. “The nature of Rush’s programming has always presented challenges for us and he’s always pushed the envelope. But this time he’s taken it too far,” said WBEC’s General Manager Peter Barry. Armed Forces Radio is also under pressure by VoteVets to pull Limbaugh out of its programming.
A Hawaiian station, why that's Obama's home state. A Massachusetts station? But ... but.......isn't that ROMNEY territory?
A rumored dozen advertisers have left; although there is some question as to one of the companies being cited widely actually having been an advertiser. Here is the ThinkProgress list:
Moments ago, Bonobos, a men’s outfitter, announced on Twitter that it was dropping any of its advertisements that are appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show:
Scott Candage
@ScottCandage 5 Mar 12 .@Bonobos Thank you very much for that. Very gladdening to hear. Let us know your findings, if you could.
Bonobos
✔@Bonobos @ScottCandage Looks like we were running on it, but we've told them to pull us from the show indefinitely. Thanks for letting us know!
5 Mar 12 ReplyRetweetFavorite
Sears announced that they, too, are dropping Limbaugh:
Sears and Kmart did not intentionally advertise on the Rush Limbaugh show. Sears Holdings has taken actions to ensure our ads do not run on this show. We appreciate our customers, fans and followers and thank you for your business.
According to a ThinkProgress count, Bonobos and Sears are the 10th and 11th advertisers to drop Limbaugh in the wake of his sexist and hateful attacks on Sandra Fluke.
Other companies are considering doing so, and monitoring the protests of Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh’s latest misogynistic tirade against Georgetown University Law Student Sandra Fluke may be the last straw for many of the shock jock’s corporate sponsors. Thousands of angry customers have been inundating dozens of Limbaugh’s corporate sponsors, demanding that they cut ties with the program.
So far, Sleep Number, The Sleep Train, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, Citrix, Carbonite, ProFlowers, Tax Resolution, AOL, Bonobos, Sears, and Allstate Insurance have pulled ads from the program, and several others are considering following their lead.
ThinkProgress is collecting reactions from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook on Storify. Here’s a look at some responses so far:
Other companies though have been slow to react, or are simply ignoring mounting feedback.
We need to take a stand now against his revolting behavior. Sign our petition and let Sandra Fluke know that you are on her side.
Update
An earlier version of this post listed the Cleveland Cavaliers as one of the companies that dropped Limbaugh, based on a report from WFNY. Although the Cavaliers have the same owner as Quicken Loans, WFNY’s report was subsequently removed. It does not appear that the Cavaliers advertised on Limbaugh’s show
I think there is an excellent case to be made that Romney and Limbaugh are inextricably linked by money and influence. Limbaugh appears to function as both a Romney surrogate, stating the things that Romney and conservatives want said, but doesn't want to be caught saying them. It appears equally evident that Limbaugh is a hatchet man, a political enforcer, given the number of right wingers he's forced to recant and to conform.
In the following clip, I was particularly intrigued with the observations of Michelle Bernard, a woman prominent in conservative and independent politics, a woman of color, and as she notes here - a graduate of the same Georgetown University Law School attended by Ms. Fluke. Ms. Bernard has had both public and private interactions with Limbaugh which apply to this controversy. Those comments occur approximately 7 minutes into this clip, but watch the lead in as well to those 7 minutes; it is well worth it.
It is not only the conservative Ms. Bernard who makes the observations about Limbaugh as enforcer; similar observations have come from a variety of conservative pundits, like this interview with George Will:
ABC’s George Will told me Sunday on “This Week” that GOP leaders have steered clear of harshly denouncing Limbaugh’s comments because “Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”
“[House Speaker John] Boehner comes out and says Rush’s language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff,” Will said. “And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”
Limbaugh doesn't appear to be the only one that Romney has on a Bain-owned leash; Hannity and the disgraced Glenn Beck are on the same radio shows roster. While Romney's holdings are operated by a blind trust, it is no secret that approx. 45% of his holdings are Bain Capital.
The latest efforts to be a surrogate, and to be an enforcer have appeared to backfire, if the intent was to create a controversy that would energize the base for Romney and the GOP. Advertisers are departing, and continuing to suspend their business, in some cases terminating business, despite the non-apology apology.
The wording between Romney and Limbaugh has been similar; that they woulda coulda shoulda used different words. It was not only the choice of words that is the problem; it was the intent, it was the concept, it was the entire position.
Sandra Fluke spoke about contraception used for non-contraceptive therapeutic use. She spoke about a woman who needed it in order to preserve her remaining ovary due to an ovarian condition, a disease. The woman in question who needed but could not afford contraceptive therapy for that condition is gay; I do not know as of this writing if she is married or not. Ms. Fluke did not assert that she was seeking contraception coverage for her own sexual activity, or indeed for any one's sexual activity specifically. She wanted an important form of medication to be available to students who needed it. What Limbaugh said was a gross misrepresentation of fact, and how he said it was an extremely offensive personal attack. That the attack came from a man who appears to have been a Dominican Republic sex tourist, stopped with an unusually large amount of Viagra by Homeland Security in 2006, which you can read about here. The Dominican Republic is notorious not only for its sexual tourism, but specifically for the availability and sexploitation of underage girls.
In that context, I found Limbaugh's observations about underage girls and sex that he made on March 1, 2012 particularly disturbing:
"Who bought your condoms in junior high? Who bought your condoms in the sixth grade? Or your contraception. Who bought your contraceptive pills in high school?"
So not only do we have a leap that a young woman who is seeking hormone therapy to help her friend save her ovaries from disease, pain, and expensive surgery; not only do we have an unfounded leap that this woman is sexually promiscuous; we have Limbaugh publicly asserting that this woman has been sexually active since she was 11 or 12 years old. But he would have us believe this is not a personal attack on her, or that it is not an attack on girls and women? He wants us to believe that this was......some kind of attempted humor, and that he is the real victim here? NO. NO WAY. HELL NO.
The right would have us believe there is no 'culture war on women'; the evidence that there is very much a war on women is to overwhelming for that denial to be credible. The right would have us believe this is a ploy by the left to shift attention away from the economy-----except that the topic has been brought up, consistently, by the right, not the left. The economic news is largely better for the policies of the left than the right; no way that the left wants to change the subject now. These are 'spaghetti' arguments; throw half-cooked ideas at the public, like a wall, and see what sticks. NOTHING ABOUT THE APOLOGY FROM LIMBAUGH HAS BEEN CREDIBLE OR PERSUASIVE. Even Limbaugh's fellow conservatives are not buying it, and his advertisers continue to leave him, one after the other, despite his crappy non-apology apology.
But there was more that was offensive, more that exceeds, by vast distances, the notion of a mere bad choice of words' line of crap from both Romney and Limbaugh. From the wikipedia article on the Limbaugh Fluke controversy - and yes, there IS one :
He continued that Fluke is "having so much sex, it's amazing she can still walk".
Seriously, THIS from the man who was engaging in apparent sexual tourism with huge quantities of Viagra, in a third world country noted for underage prostitutes?
He also said Georgetown should establish a "Wilt Chamberlain scholarship ... exclusively for women". He described Fluke as "a woman who is happily presenting herself as an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman. She wants all the sex in the world whenever she wants it, all the time, no consequences. No responsibility for her behavior."[15]
Using her name so very frequently, with the false but very explicit statements that he does, that IS a personal attack. It is the kind of attack, the specific use of sexual language that women recognize as a very specific form of intimidation, one that often goes with sexual harassment when it occurs in the work place. It is nearly always something that the abuser, the harasser tries to pass off as just a little humor, in order to excuse his conduct. Excusing one's conduct is not taking responsibility for that conduct, and in any apology, it negates that apology. Effectively it says, 'I'm sorry for what I did wrong, except that I'm not sorry, and what I did was not wrong, and you're bad for making me the victim of what I did that wasn't wrong."
Limbaugh continued with his very personal attack on Ms. Fluke with factually inaccurate and not funny comments claiming rampant promiscuity, like these (again from the wikipedia article):
On March 3, 2012, Limbaugh defended his previous comments about Fluke and complained that "not one person says that, 'Well, did you ever think about maybe backing off the amount of sex that you have?". Limbaugh said that requiring insurance companies to cover contraception is "no different than if somebody knocked on my door that I don't know and said, 'You know what? I'm out of money. I can't afford birth-control pills, and I'm supposed to have sex with three guys tonight.' "
And we are supposed to believe that Limbaugh ISN'T the person projecting HIS OWN sexual proclivities here? It is his mind, not Sandra Fluke's, that went in this direction.
As of this writing, some nine advertisers have left Limbaugh, and others are considering doing so. We can only hope all of the advertisers have the sense to do so, the decency to do so, and are more skeptical of these statements that are not political humor, and are very much an attack on an individual of the worst kind, and an attack on the residents of this country who are female as well. Limbaugh promotes the worst women-as-subordinate women-as-sexual conquest-for-exploitation view. He does so, because there is a segment of his base that thinks the same way, and there are far too many others among the Limbaugh audience who do not object, or do not object much to that world view. While Limbaugh may have miscalculated - or maybe not - he was correct that there was an audience among his listeners to whom he directed the rants, Rush fans who DID go on record in agreement with those statements, as fact, as political ideology, NOT as humor. Those were the people to whom Limbaugh was pandering, and those are the people among the conservative base to whom all of the candidates are pandering. So were these. This is the basis, the world view, the ideology for the right wing attack on women, on feminists, on gender and sexual equality. This is the pro-perversion segment of the ultra-conservative right. It is not by any stretch all conservatives; but it is an accurate characterization of many more than the ones who are open and vocal.
But it is not only Limbaugh and his radio show and his advertisers who should be held accountable; Romney and his buddies at Bain, through their ownership of Clear Channel, are the ones who have profited by this, not just Limbaugh. They have made money, and one could argue that they have made REPEATED political use - political capital - out of Limbaugh and the other extremists in their employ who are the sock puppets for their ventriloquism. This is an ideology that is reactionary, this is an ideology that is attempting to reverse the gender and racial equality of the past century, this is an ideology of hatred.
We need to call it what it is; we need to recognize it when we see it in the public square of politics, and most of all we need to identify and oppose the mechanism by which it works. We do all of those things when we make the connections between the parties involved, and the working of the money flow and the power dynamic instead of regarding these events with only superficial understanding.
It is time for Limbaugh to be as 'over' as his colleague Glenn Beck. Hannity and O'Reilly shouldn't be far behind in their departures to obscurity. The line should form, appropriately, to the right for all the other right wing media hate mongers. The exodus and the impetus needs to begin with the advertisers, continue with their audience, and end with those who made money from this ideology enforcement and surrogate speech repudiating the talking heads, emphatically, not sorta-kinda-maybe-justa-little.
I found the kicker at the end of this piece from Truthout to be fascinating. It's too bad Granholm is Canadian born; if she were born in the U.S., she'd make a fascinating presidential candidate in her own right...against the right.
Fired Up! A Call to Boycott "Repulsive, Misogynistic" Limbaugh and His Sponsors Friday 2 March 2012
When Rush Limbaugh doubles down on Sandra Fluke, a law student who was to testify in front of Congress about contraception legislation, Jennifer Granholm fires back.
Rush Limbaugh is a repulsive misogynistic blowhard. By now, no one should expect more than neanderthal grunts from him.
But, his radio program is owned by a syndicator, premiere, which in turn is owned by – Clear Channel. Should we not expect more of these companies? And the sponsors of the Rush Limbaugh show. Do you really want to be associated with this horrible man?
And Republicans in Congress, will you not speak up? What if this was your daughter?
What about the Republicans who are running for president, are you men enough? Do you have a backbone to stand up to the spewing volcanic mouthpiece that is Rush Limbaugh? A man who calls a college student who comes before congress to testify a slut? Don’t any of you want to say, “No. This goes over the line.”
This is offensive to anyone with a shred of respect for women. Do you want young women to fear testifying before a government hearing, lest they be subject to slanderous statements broadcast to millions of Americans? Republicans, do you want women to think he represents conservatism? Good luck with that.
I don’t know anything about Sandra Fluke. But I do know this. Her parents ought to be very proud of her courage and grace under fire. If she were my daughter, I would be.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California says these are the supporters of Rush’s show: Quicken Loans, Century21, LegalZoom and Sleep Number. She is asking the public to contact these companies to stop supporting his radio program and to hit the parent company where it hurts. And if you are outraged too, then go online and sign this petition asking Republican leaders to denounce Rush Limbaugh’s comments. And oh, did I forget to mention? Clear Channel is owned by … Wait for it … Bain Capital.
So out of curiosity to see what other companies Bain Capital owns, that might for example be sponsors of Clear Channel and Rush, I thought I'd begin by fact checking the claim about Bain Capital owning Clear Channel. Here is what Wikipedia had on the topic:.
So, I decided it would be a good idea to find out if Bain was the sole owner, or just an investor in Clear Channel, since these two concepts of 'ownership' are frequently confused. Here is what Wikipedia had to say about Clear Channel and Bain:
Leveraged buy-outs - where have we heard about THOSE before from Romney? But I have to wonder if this doesn't provide a potentially interesting insight into the politics of Rush on the radio, and of any spin we might see from Clear Channel programming for the 2012 election.
For those of you who haven't gotten taking some form of action in response to Rush out of your system, if you're still angry and horrified, here is another petition you can sign as well, although I doubt Limbaugh will have any other response than to enjoy the attention.
Maybe the person we should be petitioning is not the Republican member(s) of Congress, but Mitt Romney. It was Mitt who bragged about how much he liked to fire people who gave bad service; this would seem to qualify, and Mitt would seem to be, if at a sort of remove, Rush's boss, in that Rush broadcasts on his network. If Romney DOESN'T fire Rush, then it would certainly suggest his brag is nothing more than hot air, without substance, or.........that he approves of Rush's statements and agrees with them.
Romney can't simply claim that the relationship is purely a business one, where he owes his fellow owners/investors a duty to make them money. Rush Limbaugh is losing sponsors hand over fist, not unlike weepy and hateful Glenn Beck who is now relegated to well-deserved obscurity. Let's hope Rush joins him sooner than later in the radio living purgatory of no-one's-listening-ville.
The advertisers reported a deluge of complaining tweets, Huffington Post reported. Sleep Train, a mattress retailer based in the Sacramento area that has advertised on Limbaugh's show for a quarter-century, was the first to announce it was leaving Friday.
ProFlowers responded to tweets with a message that it is "re-evaluating" its marketing strategy. Quicken Loans, Sleep Number and Legal Zoom also announced they are considering leaving Limbaugh or planning to do so.
"We have listened to our customers & have decided to cease our advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Show immediately," Citrix Systems Inc., a software development company, said.
The liberal Web site Talking Points memo reported the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers announced they were suspending " any and all on-air advertising with the Rush Limbaugh radio program, citing "inflammatory comments" coupled with valuable feedback from both clients and team employees."
Several other Limbaugh sponsors were looking into their advertising policies, businessinsider.com reported Friday.
