Religion vs. The Constitution – why are we even debating this?

Do you remember Jefferson’s ideal that “all men are created equal” and have “certain unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” Right… it’s in the Declaration of Independence… the document upon which our democracy has been constructed.

More than half the population, however, faces discrimination every day in every aspect of their lives and do not enjoy equal rights.

Republicans do not embrace equal rights for all Americans…  their drive to subject women to inequality and discrimination is only matched by their punitive actions to restrict gays from marrying or even having a civil union with the partner they love..

President Obama, in his historic announcement on Wednesday that he supports gay marriage, defines himself as a true advocate for equal rights for all Americans.

The opposition to gay marriage is based solely in religious dogma, and by legislating against same-sex marriage, Republicans are sanctioning religious discrimination laws that are, at the least, unconstitutional. Republicans claim that not following the Christian prohibition on homosexuality threatens traditional marriage, destroys children, and will lead to America’s demise, but they have no evidence to support any of their claims.

Conservative republicans’ media outlets, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, advocate this inequality and discrimination and  emboldens homophobic Americans to renounce the rights of all citizens for gays. Giving the gay community the right to marry is not only about ending social discrimination, it also means the end of financial penalties for being gay…for instance, the ability to have “married status” on federal income tax returns.

Is our freedom for all Americans? For some Americans? Fort rich Americans? For Religious Americans? – I hope it is for EVERYONE and no backsies.

Related articles

• Another Time In History (catsnjammer64.wordpress.com)
• Moran Applauds President’s Support of Gay Marriage (arlnow.com)
• Should America legalise gay marriage? (4l2012.wordpress.com)
• Bill Donohue: ‘I Want The Law To Discriminate’ Against Same-Sex Couples (thinkprogress.org)
• Utahns weigh in on Obama support for same-sex marriage ()
• Unions Back Obama’s Stand for Marriage Equality (talkingunion.wordpress.com)
• Obama criticizes Romney as ‘backwards on equality’ (onlineathens.com)
• Daily Show traces the evolution of Fox’s same sex marriage talking points (rawstory.com)
• Poll: O.C. Democrats favor federal gay marriage (totalbuzz.ocregister.com)

Quote of the Day: Michael J. Fox on Rush Limbaugh

Interviewed on the tube last night, Michael J. Fox commented on Rush Limbaugh‘s attacks on women (and reminded everyone that it was Limbaugh who declared Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease a fake):

“But the thing with Sandra Fluke, I am husband to a wife and a father to daughters, and a son to a mother, and a brother to sisters, and that was really offensive… I can yell and scream and wave my arms, ironically, or whatever about what he said, but let the free market decide, and all the things. I love there to be voices out there that I don’t agree with. I love people to say vile offensive things, because then I know who they are, and as a voter I know they are, and as a consumer, I know who they are, and then they have identified themselves, and all things being equal, the market will balance that out.

You know there’s this talk about Bill Maher. The difference with Bill Maher is that he is on HBO, and he doesn’t have advertisers. He was once in the public sector and made statements and advertisers bailed on him, and he was relegated to cable. So now, I find it much less egregious in a way, not the content of what he says, it may be offensive, but it’s a different thing than this giant corporate supported bully pulpit that this man has, and the way again, he did the same thing with Sandra Fluke that he did with me, but as I said more egregious I think with Sandra Fluke, because here was a private citizen expressing an opinion that she has a right to express that was sought out by people we’ve elected to represent the point of view the public, and she was knocked down brutally.”

How is it that Rush gets any sponsors at all?

So Rush Apologized (apparently for displaying what he thought was his sense of humor), but he’s still losing advertisers.

Even though he made this lackluster apology, he is still losing his advertising base. Here’s today’s announcement in the press:

NEW YORK (AP) — A flower company is the seventh advertiser to pull its ads from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh‘s radio program in reaction to his derogatory comments about a law student who testified about birth control policy.

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.

Here’s a bit from my sense of humor: how many more advertisers leaving would it take to get this foul-mouthed asshole off the air?

It’s hard to know what to say… Andrew Breitbart, enemy of most of us who support Obama and the Rational Left, is dead at 43.

From the LA Times:

The conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, the polarizing website publisher who once helped edit the Drudge Report and found his way to tea-party stardom in recent years and exposed the story of the sexually explicit tweets of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), suddenly collapsed near his Westwood home early Thursday morning and died. He was 43.

Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center suspected his death was due to natural causes, Breitbart’s father-in-law, actor Orson Bean, told The Times.

“He was walking near the house somewhere…. He was taken by paramedics to UCLA and they couldn’t revive him,” said Bean, who spoke with his daughter, Susannah Bean Breitbart, about what happened.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed it will investigate the case, given how young Breitbart was.

Breitbart was a Hollywood-hating, mainstream-media-loathing conservative, and shot to stardom with two stories in recent years: breaking the story over the sexually charged tweets by Weiner, a scandal that led to his resignation; and posting a video of Shirley Sherrod, a black employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in which she appeared to make racially charged comments, leading to her firing and then a subsequent apology by the Obama administration when it was later revealed her comments were taken out of context.

This will certainly ease an element of the election situation this year.

It puts the thought in my head that maybe there IS a God. Or maybe Rush Limbaugh could go out and walk around his house, too.

Breitbart was no respecter of the maxim that one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead: After the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 2009, he spewed venom all over the liberal lion’s grave via Twitter, calling him a “special pile of human excrement,” a “villain” and other things we can’t reprint on a family website. So I don’t have any qualms about remembering Breitbart, who died suddenly Thursday at 43, as a closed-minded bully and blowhard who seemed to think he could win debates by shouting louder than his opponent rather than having a better argument, a casual liar who shamelessly destroyed reputations and an unfortunate new species of Internet parasite.

–Dan Turner, LA Times Staff

I guess  agree. I just don’t feel bad.

The Heat Keeps Up…

Looks like the extreme heat is going to keep up for the next few days according to the Weather Channel. The rain they predicted (scattered of course) for last night didn’t occur here in Shepherdstown, WV, so we have still more garden watering to do before we lose our fruits and vegetables (and sunflowers…beautiful sunflowers) to the awful weather.

To some, this is proof that Climate Change is actually happening as announced by the majority of scientists specializing in this stuff. Rush Limbaugh is, I hope, running around in this oven with a sweater on to prove his point. With any luck he’ll collapse from the heat (and blame his fall on Obama.)

As long as the AC is on, I’m spending most of my time in here watching the Republicans shaft Boehner on C-Span.

Have you ever heard of Neal Boortz?

Avoid This Creep

Waiting for C-Span to start broadcasting the House debate on raising the Debt Ceiling, I found the political station showing something called The Media Research Center “Dishonors Awards” (if you aren’t aware of the MRC, it was started by the far right-wing creepiness pushing “celebrity”, Brent Bozell). At the point I tuned it in, this program, which is aimed at insulting and ridiculing anyone on the left (or even the center, it seems), someone named Neal Boortz, who, it seems is some kind of radio talk show person who has been working, by his statement, for 40 years. He very easily mocked every talk show host, radio or television, who didn’t agree with extreme right politics.

As he claimed that people like Keith Olbermann, Bob Schiefer (see what I mean about “center”) and Tavis Smiley lied about Tea Party members who have been documented as insulting, spitting at and yelling accusations at Democratic Congressmen and Senators, he managed to use more words that I don’t even want to reproduce here… but which could be seen as a boomerang coming back to criticize himself.

As I said, I have never heard of this Neal Boortz before and, since I don’t listen to extreme right wing radio, I hope I never have to again. If he is one of your heroes, then put his statue up on your shelf with Rush Limbaugh‘s and Glenn Beck‘s and have a joyous worship service. I’m going to go wash my hands and get rid of the poop the TV clicker transferred by bringing in this program. C-Span should be ashamed.

Related articles

• Ann Coulter Gives the Ode to Keith Olbermann Award at the Media Research Center’s ‘Dishonor Awards’ Ceremony (crooksandliars.com)
• Herman Cain & Federal Reserve ? (2012patriot.wordpress.com)
• Why Local Talk Radio Makes Sense (ereleases.com)

Quote of the Day – Limbaugh Cites Democrats and Pima County Sheriff as Being Pro-Murder

Salon this morning has a disturbing article called “Rush Limbaugh says a Dozen Incredibly Offensive Things“.

He “jokingly” suggested that Democrats had purposefully orchestrated a mass murder for their own political benefit. He incorrectly asserted that “every association that any act of violence has been made with the conservative right has fallen on emptiness.” He said that now the government will take away your guns, along with “as many political freedoms as they can manage.” (So you’d better stock up on guns, and you’d better fear and hate the government!)

And then they reported this Limbaugh quote:

“This guy clearly understands he’s getting all the attention and he understands he’s got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he’s not convicted of murder.”

When you consider the major increase on the sale of Glocks since the tragic event in Tucson, Limbaugh seems to be encouraging such sales by suggesting that government is out to get citizen’s political freedom. Once again I ask a question I’ve asked before… Why is this guy on the air?

Related Articles

• Rush Limbaugh says a dozen incredibly offensive things (salon.com)
• Rush Limbaugh Attacks ‘The Left’ Over Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Response (blogs.abcnews.com)
• Limbaugh: Loughner “Has The Full Support” Of The “Democrat” Party (alan.com)
• Rush Limbaugh: Jared Loughner “Has The Full Support Of” The Democratic Party (mediaite.com)
• Rush Limbaugh Joins Attempt To Blame The Left For AZ Shooting (pinkbananaworld.com)
• Limbaugh says Democrats support assassin who shot Rep. Giffords (americablog.com)
• Rush Limbaugh Feels The Sting Of Sheriff Dupnik’s Comments, Claims Dems Support Loughner (lezgetreal.com)
• Arizona Sheriff Blasts Rush Limbaugh for Spewing ‘Irresponsible’ Vitriol (Keep It Up Sheriff!) (gunnyg.wordpress.com)

Conason’s column in Salon should be read…

…he focuses on Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee which will go after Obama with a vengeance.

Here’s part of the column…go into Salon.com and read the rest:

clipped from www.salon.com Meet the leader of the Obama witch hunt Darrell Issa How Darrell Issa will conduct the vital business of the House Oversight Committee when he takes over as chairman isn’t clear yet. When the California Republican describes his plans in the mainstream media, he strives to sound reasonable, bipartisan and public-spirited; but when speaking with media outlets and personalities, such as Rush Limbaugh, he sounds like a hard-line right-winger aiming to revive the paranoid partisan style of the Gingrich era – He displayed the fugue state that preoccupies him when he denounced President Obama on CNN as “the most corrupt” occupant of the Oval Office in modern times – and then withdrew that accusation with an apology. Now Issa has announced that he expects the Oversight committee and its subcommittees to hold nearly three times as many investigative hearings over the next two years as Henry Waxman, an active and successful chairman, ran during the final years of the Bush administration.

Related Articles

• Darrell Issa wants to hold 280 investigative hearings (dailykos.com)
• Incoming House Oversight Chair Issa Needs New Oversight (emptywheel.firedoglake.com)
• Issa walks back comment calling Obama ‘corrupt’ (via Anderson Cooper 360) (ynative77.wordpress.com)

Emmy Award Winning Writer/Producer Stu Kreisman Wrote This to President Obama…

This was in HuffPo this morning… I print it in full here:

A letter from a Progressive to President Obama:

Dear President Obama,

First off, I want to tell you that despite the enormous landmines set in place by George W. Bush and the Republicans, you have accomplished amazing things in your first two years in office. You have saved the country from another depression, pushed through landmark health care legislation; you have slowed the downward spiral of job losses, ended the war in Iraq and cut taxes on most of the nation.

I enthusiastically canvassed for you in ’08, registered voters, manned phone banks and contributed money. However, this election cycle I did none of the above and refused to contribute money to the DCCC. Let me explain.

I am a liberal. I am also your base. Yes, I understand that the rule in politics is don’t sacrifice the good for the perfect. However, your progressive base was asked not just to sacrifice time and time again, we were held up to ridicule and blamed by your administration for your shortcomings, of which there were plenty.

You came into office with a huge mandate. You campaigned on changing the toxic atmosphere in Washington. You offered to reach across the aisle and involve Republicans in decision-making. All noble gestures and, true to your word, you made the effort. No problem there. You’re a man of your word. You tried.

However… you didn’t know when to stop. You continued to pander to the right desperately searching for common ground. A week after the inauguration, Rush Limbaugh announced that he hoped that you failed. Another tip off should have been the stimulus package. Although you consulted with them and watered it down on their advice, not one Republican voted to help save the economy. When given the choice of saving the country or destroying your Presidency, the Republicans chose destruction over patriotism. You were not dealing with rational people.

We voted for change and a fresh start. This was a “New Deal” moment. Instead, we on the left were disappointed by the number of Clinton re-treads you choose for positions in your administration. With the Clintonistias came the failed theory of triangulation. It didn’t work then and it isn’t working now. (Ironically, the one Clinton holdover who’s done a fantastic job is Hillary. She was an inspired choice for Secretary Of State.)

To say that the opposition doesn’t like you is an understatement. They hate you. No matter what you do for them, they will never vote for you. (Would it have hurt you to make the Republicans physically filibuster whenever they invoked it? It’s called political theater and it would have demonstrated to the uneducated what the Repubicans really stood for. Trust me, they’re going to make Democrats do it even if they whisper the that ‘f’ word.) Yet you continued to let them off the hook and pander to them at the expense of your base, the progressives.

Again not wanting to annoy the right, you didn’t fire (as was your right as President) all the Bush-appointed federal prosecutors. These were the ones who passed Karl Rove’s neo-con smell test for partiality. You never mentioned Bush other than to praise him. Previous problems were always referred to as events of “the past ten years.” People needed to know what destruction Bush and the Republicans did in plain English rather than in polite, veiled references. Instead, you handed the right wing a stronger stranglehold of the judiciary as a peace offering. (By the way, are you surprised that the Republicans have blocked most of your judicial nominations?) Was this an olive branch to the right? If so, they threw it right back in your face and laughed.

The Republicans and conservative Democrats played you like a cheap fiddle during the health care “debate.” It never really was a debate. By allowing Max Baucus and his bipartisan group of six to take charge of the bill, they played a stall game and the delay opened a void during the August recess that was filled by the teabaggers. The mainstream media fell in love with the teabaggers because yelling, rage and the possibility of violence (even manufactured and paid for) makes for good TV. By trying to let all sides be heard (even after Sen. DeMint announced that Healthcare will be your Waterloo), you lost control of the narrative. Where were the denunciations of the lies about “Death Panels?” Who gave the store away by giving in to republican demands delaying most of the new laws until 2014? Why were you always on the defensive? Who was calling the Republicans out on their lies? Certainly not the administration or the media. They have such little respect for you and Progressives that Andrew Breitbart was just hired by ABC News as a commentator on Election Night. (Speaking of the media, where was your FCC when it was discovered that Fox had contributed a million dollars to the Republican Governor’s Association? What about Fox using the public airwaves as a tool to solicit money for Republican candidates? And what has your FCC done to safeguard Net Neutrality? Once the Internet goes, the truth will be lost for generations.)

You constantly referred to the summer of ’09 and the more recent atrocities as “the silly season.” It was far from silly. Teabaggers weren’t good and decent people who felt alienated by the ballooning deficit as you rationalized. They were a small, well-orchestrated group of selfish, ignorant Fox viewers who were repulsed not by the deficit, but by the color of your skin. They brought guns to rallies. They lied constantly. They physically threatened citizens who attended Town Halls and refused to let Democrats speak. They posed under pictures of holocaust victims, referring to you as another Hitler on a regular basis. They painted Swastikas on Democratic congressmen’s windows. They shot and killed people because Glenn Beck and the other Fox puppet heads lied and announced as a regular talking point that you were going to take away their guns. They spat on Democratic lawmakers. They stomped on the head of people who didn’t agree with them. These are not good and decent people. They’re psychopaths and trying to placate them or identify with some of their grievances was a waste of time. They are a small minority of the electorate who managed to get the lion’s share of publicity and exposure at your expense.

No need to go into you administration’s numerous quotes blaming the left, unions and progressive bloggers for all the country’s ills. Who was making these communication decisions? Were you and your administration that smug to think that the left would understand? Why were Howard Dean, George Lakoff and the great minds of the left banished to the hinterlands? What was their crime other than being Liberals?

Your administration’s communication skills are, to be honest, horrible. Would it have been so hard to put up a commercial with the jobs created/lost graph showing that just after you took office you stopped the hemorrhaging? This is the land of the scared and the stupid. Trying to explain that losing 80,000 jobs a month is better than losing 750,000 a month is a hard abstract for these knuckleheads to wrap their simplistic minds around. They needed pictures to understand. Where were the national Democratic commercials of Joe Barton apologizing, “ashamed” of you and your “shakedown” of BP? This from the congressman who will now become the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Where were the national commercials of John Boehner screaming “Hell no you can’t!” Where were the talking points promoting your tax cut? Where were the ads exposing the Chamber of Commerce and the Koch Brothers? Where was the fight? Where was the passion? And you wonder why a large number of young voters stayed home?

Do you really believe if (God forbid) we are hit again like on 9-11, the entire country will rally around you like they did behind George Bush? The right is salivating at the thought of another catastrophe. And when it happens, the first words out of their mouths will be “I told you so” and they will call for your impeachment. These are the people you tried to placate instead of us. You forfeited your bully pulpit to Rupert Murdoch. Yet we’ve become the piñatas for your administration’s frustrations.

“No Drama Obama” didn’t work. Hate, lies and videotape of teabaggers stepping on Progressive’s skulls are in. We elected Barack Obama, not Gandhi to lead us. Passive resistance doesn’t compute to a Fox viewer. While I’m glad that your personal approval numbers are still high, they could have been so much higher had you listened to someone like Bernie Sanders instead of cow towing to Joe Lieberman. Passion is what motivates voters. Franklin Roosevelt welcomed his opponent’s hatred. You seem oblivious to it.

The woman who told you “I’m… exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for” was absolutely right. You’re mistake was being idealistic and naïve. Republicans were never a true opposition. You can have a civil conversation with an opponent. They treated you as an enemy of the United States and Progressive bloggers were the ones on the front lines defending you. It was Think Progress that uncovered the Chamber Of Commerce’s plan to funnel foreign funds into the election. Sites like Daily Kos did more to help get out the vote than Tim Kaine. Media Matters was doing the administration’s job of pointing out the lies and hypocrisy of the right while CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN were breathlessly reporting on Mel Gibson’s marital woes. Fox was busy soliciting funds for radical right candidates who hid from the public. The Left is already taking the blame from the corporate media for losing the election and I’m sure we’ll hear the same from the White House. In fact, the Left was the only group that constantly defended you against the tidal wave of lies and distortions. Tacking to the center-right was a disastrous move on your administration’s part. The truth is that the majority of Americans are center-left. By playing tough against the “lefties” you played right into the narrative of the conservatives. This is how you created the “enthusiasm gap.”

So now we’re in for two years of gridlock and hell. There’s going to be a lot of yelling and posturing from the right and nothing is going to get done. The Republicans have no idea how to generate jobs or stimulate the economy, and they will not give you a single vote on anything that will. They’ll probably shut down the government and blame it on you. Yet you’ve already announced that you see opportunities to work with Republicans after Election Day. Wrong. You fight them because you are on the correct side of the issues. You cannot reason with people who worship at the alter of Sarah Palin (One part Joe McCarthy, One part Father Coughlin and one part Lindsay Lohan.)

So this is why I didn’t go all out this year. I voted, but I’m dispirited. We on the left are fighters and it just took the wind out of our sails when you refused to fight back. I hope I’m wrong about a lot of what I’ve written here. I’m rooting for you. I want to walk the districts make the GOTV calls with enthusiasm again. I still believe you can be a leader for the ages and you’re the only one who can get us out this mess. I’ll vote for you in 2012 but Mr. President, you’re not making it easy to do so. It’s time to dance with the ones that brought you to the White House. If you don’t, you’ll be dancing alone back in Chicago in three years and that will be a tragedy not just for you but also for the United States.

Respectfully,
A Proud Progressive

Related Articles

• Vote (nytimes.com)
• “Cornyn’s Concession Means Nothing — Republicans Already Control the Senate” and related posts (amormundi.blogspot.com)
• “When Republicans Win, What Then?” and related posts (thesteadydrip.blogspot.com)

Limbaugh “helps” Raese…

So, the Senate here in West Virginia, Rush Limbaugh in endorsing Raese for not only reinforces our concern with the Republican‘s Florida residency, but adds his membership in a well-known “white boys” club. 

Here’s a piece from HuffPo… Go in and read it all:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com In the process of touting his credentials for the office, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh may have inadvertently caused West Virginia Senate candidate John Raese a major political headache. “I happen to know John Raese,” Limbaugh said, in a segment late last week that endorsed Raese’s candidacy. “He is a part-time resident here in Palm Beach and he has a locker right across the, right across the bench from me at a prominent local club. I’ve never played golf with him, but I’ve met him.” Limbaugh’s remarks provided a revelatory detail about Raese’s biography that the candidate himself had, up till that point, kept out of the press. And as news sites pointed out at the time, it added to the somewhat damaging frame that the conservative business owner is not an authentic West Virginian The club that Limbaugh appeared to have been referring to was the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, an upper crust scene for the predominantly white, Christian, Palm Beach elite. Membership in the Everglades Club actually landed Limbaugh in hot water roughly one year ago when he was part of a bid to buy ownership of the St. Louis Rams football franchise. Among the more unflattering aspects that surfaced then was that while the club had no formal membership guidelines, as of 2008 it had never let in a black member and there had only been one Jewish member in its history. Everglades has, in addition, not been without its share of political controversies. The New York Post reported that: “Joseph Kennedy quit the Everglades when his son became president.” And in 1996, Georgia GOP Senate candidate Guy Millner resigned his membership in the middle of a tight U.S. Senate race against Max Cleland.

Related Articles

• WV-Sen: Rush endorses Raese for being from Florida, wanting to nuke minimum wage (dailykos.com)
• Which Is The Party Of The Elites, Again? (alan.com)
• Sarah Palin Endorses Senate Candidate in Wrong State [Oops] (gawker.com)
• Where’s he from? Palin botches tweet touting Raese (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Palin Endorses Raese In Pennsylvania – But He’s From West Virginia (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Republican Candidate John Raese’s Wife Can’t Vote For Him: Purged From WV Voter Rolls As A Registered FL Voter (crooksandliars.com)

Cartoon(s) of the Week – 2 Views of Today’s World

John Sherffius in the Boulder Camera:

Boys, boys! Calm down!

– and –

Ben Sargent in the Austin American-Statesman:

Or, as McLuhan said, The Medium is the Message.

This makes me realize how much I like Dick Orkin…

As a student in the Chicagoland radio metier in the late 60s, one of my great joys was listening to Chickenman on WCFL AM radio. I still listen to it today on CDs my daughter Cassandra sent me some years ago. Chickenman was created by one of the all-time greats of radio, Dick Orkin, as a feature of the late Jim Runyon’s program (Runyon can still be heard as the Announcer…”WEL-L-L-L”… on the Chickenman recordings) and you can still buy ALL the recordings of this classic at Orkin’s Radio Ranch.

So when I heard this week that Orkin had requested the removal of his well-earned plaque from the Broadcast Hall of Fame as long as Rush Limbaugh was honored there, I really increased my respect for the man.

To quote an article in Radio Ink:

Orkin says he was “enormously proud” to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2002 in “such distinguished company as Edward R. Murrow, Robert Trout, Paul Harvey, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Red Skelton, William S. Paley, Ronald Reagan, just to name a few.” He continues, “Apart from ‘leadership’ recognition, it seemed to me that at the core of the selection criteria was also the essential ‘humanitarian’ character of the chosen inductee.”

Orkin notes that Limbaugh has been a member of the NAB Broadcast Hall of Fame since 1998 and says, “Although my political views were not in line with his, I agreed with many in broadcasting, including my longtime friend Eric Rhoads of Radio Ink, that the uniqueness of his controversial radio style and performance made Limbaugh an appropriate choice.”

But, Orkin continues, “that initial opinion has been gradually eroding over the last few years and has dramatically changed for me recently with the capper coming during the disaster that struck Haiti last week.”

While admitting that Limbaugh met the criteria of having a plaque at the Hall of Fame, his “recklessness” was a major turn-off for Orkin. Since the Hall had not responded to complaints Orkin and others had made, he was forced to issue the following:

“Therefore, if there will be neither censure or removal, then I respectfully ask the NAB to remove my plaque from the Hall of Fame. I am embarrassed that my award, as well as those of others I so highly respect, is in the company of this perfidious human being.”

The Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame has yet to comment.

Images from Haiti

This thanks to CBS and Reuters:

Aside from the support from the US which was virtually immediate, support has come in from China, Brazil and other countries. I’m going to relist where you can send $$$ to help. May I also suggest that anyone who was going to make a donation to Pat Robertson’s ministry, via the 700 Club or other means. give that cash to one of the following Haiti support sites:

•The American Red Cross is pledging an initial $200,000 to assist communities impacted by this earthquake. They expect to provide immediate needs for food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support. They are accepting donations through their International Response Fund.

•UNICEF has issued a statement that “Children are always the most vulnerable population in any natural disaster, and UNICEF is there for them.” UNICEF requests donations for relief for children in Haiti via their Haiti Earthquake Fund. You can also call 1-800-4UNICEF.

•Donate through Wyclef Jean’s foundation, Yele Haiti. Text “Yele” to 501501 and $5 will be charged to your phone bill and given to relief projects through the organization.

•Operation USA is appealing for donations of funds from the public and corporate donations in bulk of health care materials, water purification supplies and food supplements which it will ship to the region from its base in the Port of Los Angeles. Donate online at www.opusa.org, by phone at 1-800-678-7255 or, by check made out to Operation USA, 3617 Hayden Ave, Suite A, Culver City, CA 90232.

___________________________________

Just as a side comment, here’s why I’m so glad Rush Limbaugh is aligned with Neo-Conservatives and not with human beings… this from the HuffPo:

Well, it didn’t take long for conservative firebrand Rush Limbaugh to use the crisis in Haiti to attack President Obama politically. On his radio show yesterday Limbaugh said the earthquake in Haiti will play right into Obama’s hands by allowing him to play up his “compassionate” and “humanitarian” credentials, and that the President will use this crisis to “boost his credibility with the black community.”

As if that weren’t enough, Limbaugh also pivoted off a caller who complained about Obama directing the public to the White House website to find charitable organizations operating in Haiti to promote a conspiracy theory that finding these charities via the White House website puts your money at risk of not reaching Haitians.

Limbaugh also seems to feel we’ve done enough already for Haiti: “We’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.”

UPDATE: WARNING
Dylan Ratigan made a disturbing announcement on his show this afternoon, Apparently Credit Card companies are slicing a fee off of donations going to Haiti…the one exception that he found was American Express. Ratigan was starting an alert to get people to call and complain about the practice by the other card companies… they may have pulled the fees by now… but it’s worth checking to see if these capitalist pigs are taking advantage of an international tragedy.
-BT

Cantor Pushes Back Against Limbaugh, Hitler-Obama Analogies

From Sam Stein at HuffPo:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) criticized conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, on Friday, for drawing comparisons between President Obama and Adolph Hitler. And, in a sequence that seems rare in modern Republican politics, the Virginia Republican seems eager to publicize his rebuke. “Do I condone the mention of Hitler in any discussion about politics?” Cantor said. “No, I don’t, because obviously that is something that conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful.” Cantor and his colleagues in the House have, to this point, walked a fine line in rebuking Rush — fretting about the pushback they might receive from his listeners. The Congressman is the lone Jewish Republican in the House. The issue, nevertheless, emerged once again on Thursday after a tea party protest that Cantor attended featured several signs equating health care reform with the Holocaust. On a more emotional and honest level, decorated writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel tweeted (yes, he’s on Twitter) that the signs at the Capital Hill protests were an “indecent and disgusting” form of “political hatred.” Cantor, of course, can’t be held responsible for the actions of a widely attended health care protest. But clearly, both he and his advisers saw the need to demonstrate some distance. “The Republican Party in its roots is a party of inclusion and we ought to be promoting that and making sure that voices are heard,” Cantor said in his interview with Bloomberg Television.

Quote of the Day (yesterday, actually)

“Our president is a worldwide joke. Folks, do you realize something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about and that is he doesn’t deserve the award. Now that’s hilarious, that I’m on the same side of something with the Taliban, and that we all are on the same side as the Taliban.”

- Rush Limbaugh

He seems to be speaking for himself (and for the Taliban, I guess). I don’t think any of the rest of us are on the same side as the Taliban, but Rush’s anti-Americanism has made me wonder for quite a while.

There is One Jewish Republican in the House…

… and he is being called on to denounce Rush Limbaugh for equating Barack Obama with Hitler.

This from the HuffPo:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com In the wake of comments from Rush Limbaugh equating Barack Obama to Hitler, a leading Jewish Democratic organization is calling on the House of Representatives’ lone Jewish Republican to repudiate the talk show host. On Friday, National Jewish Democratic Council David Harris called on House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to denounce Limbaugh’s remarks. Pointing out that the Virginia Republican had said more “Limbaughs” were needed in the GOP just last week, Harris called on “Cantor and the Republican Party to condemn Limbaugh and these utterly contemptible tactics.” “Mr. Cantor, after Rush’s website antics today and comments yesterday, do you really still think you ‘need’ Limbaugh?” his statement read. The question wasn’t immediately answered, with Cantor currently traveling in Israel. But Harris’ statement got to a larger point: to what extent should the GOP — and, in particular, its Jewish members — be held accountable for the recent bout of Obama-Nazi comparisons?

And this from the Simon Wiesenthal Center:

August 7, 2009

Injecting Nazi Comparisons is Bad for the Health of America’s Democracy

The Simon Wiesenthal Center criticized those who have injected Adolf Hitler into the discussion of President Obama’s health care plan.

“It is preposterous to try and make a connection between the President’s health care logo and the Nazi Party symbol, the Reichsadler,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“Americans have every right to be critical of the President’s health care plan but we demean ourselves and everything that America stands for when we compare either Democrats or Republicans to the Nazi Third Reich. Some of us may be too liberal and others too conservative, but none of us are Nazis,” Rabbi Hier concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament.

For more information, contact the Center’s Public Relations department, 310-553-9036.