News Roundup for 3/5/12

His common sense approach to issues has cost him nine advertisers so far

-Bonus HotD-
"Rush's 53 Smears Against Sandra Fluke."

In his half-hearted not-really-an-apology to Georgetown University student Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh wrote, "For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke."

The problem here is that this "instance" was three separate shows over a three day period and that Rush personally attacked her -- i.e., said things about her personally -- at least 53 different times during that period.

I hope no one takes this the wrong way, because I don't mean this to be a personal attack, but Rush Limbaugh is a steaming bowl of crap. I mean that in only the nicest way, of course, and am only illustrating the absurd with absurdity. Mr. Limbaugh is not, after all, a literal steaming bowl of crap. It's merely a metaphor. He's as helpful and useful to a functioning society as a steaming bowl of crap and I just want highlight this undeniable fact.

At this point, Limbaugh's bleeding advertisers at an alarming rate, having just lost his 9th today.

Try not to take it personally, Rush. (DailyKos)


-I don't see how that's going to help-



After all, talking to Republicans is what got them so far gone in the first place. (McClatchy)


-Bonus HotD-
"Romney: 'In my administration, coal will not be a four-letter word.'"

I guess he plans to spell it wrong or something... (ThinkProgress)

News Roundup for 12/13/11

Hitting a new Lowe

-Headline of the Day-
"Protests growing against Lowe's."

All Lowe's wants to do is sell you a hammer. Maybe some bathroom tiles. If they're lucky, some big saw thing. So it was that the home improvement chain sought what it thought was the path of least resistance when it came to wingnut bigots concerned that a TV shows wasn't portraying American Muslims as terr'isty enough. Turns out TLC's All-American Muslim managed to find a family that wasn't building bombs in their basement and this was the worst thing ever! One guy even suggested they find a family that does engage in terrorism and film that, because committing crimes against America is apparently cool with him so long as it makes Muslims look bad on the teevee.

So all these people got together and decided they needed to complain to the advertisers of the show. And that's when things got stupid. Lowe's, apparently headed by people born without spines, decided that they wouldn't advertise on a show that was controversial. They said they were sad that they'd made "some people very unhappy," but this was the way things were going to be.

But here's the problem with avoiding controversy: you can't. It's pretty much impossible -- especially when the people ginning up the controversy are a bunch of bigoted assholes who hate a show because it doesn't lie about an entire American demographic. In running away from a tiny controversy, they ran headlong into a giant one. That's the sort of brilliant business sense that we've come to expect from corporate America.

Anyhoo, now Lowe's is in trouble with the not-bigot people, which is just about everyone (I know, we've been over this all before, but some people are just tuning in). They've got MoveOn and a Democratic senator on their case, as well as people like me. It's just really, really bad.

So, the lesson here is that if you run a business and a bunch of customers tell you to start hating another bunch of customers, chase them off with a broomstick. Pronto. (Politico)


-An apt analogy-


Click to embiggen

Works for me. (DailyKos)


-Bonus HotD-
"Axelrod Plays The Monkey Butt Card On Newt Gingrich."

David Axelrod: "I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, 'just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.' So, you know, [Newt Gingrich] is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view." (Talking Points Memo)

News Roundup for 10/14/11

George Soros (Reuters file photo)

-Headline of the Day-
"Reuters's Dizzying Changes to Its Soros-Occupy Wall Street Story."

Yesterday, Reuters posted a story about how it looked like shadowy gazillionare and source of all evil George Soros was behind all of this Occupy Wall Street business. Their evidence? Soros once gave money to a group that gave money to a group involved with OWS -- so that sounds super-solid already, right?

And it turns out that Soros gave money to the group that gave money back in 2009 and 2007 -- long before OWS was anybody's idea for anything. At this point, the reporting hinges on "if you squint real hard and drink a lot of vodka and ignore the fact that time exists, it kind of looks like maybe its possible that George Soros had maybe something to do with all this. Maybe."

So not everyone was sold on this and people started pointing out that this was really shitty reporting. At this point, Reuters changed the story to "Soros: not a funder of Wall Street protests." No, really. Apparently good reporting now involves the process of elimination. Look for the big, widely distributed story that Lexx Luthor isn't behind this thing either.

But the fixed story is not the only version that Reuters is distributing -- they also feature the unfixed story, in case that's what you like better.

So, if you live in the real world, then you can learn that George Soros has been ruled out as the mastermind behind the 99-percenters. If you're a Tea Party nutjob who blames George Soros every time it rains, then the uncorrected version is the one for you.

And through it all, the story has been updated and rewritten to death, when the most obvious solution would be a retraction. "Reuters cannot -- must not -- get a reputation as a right-wing media outlet," writes Reuters' own blogger Felix Salmon. "We have to report the news as impartially as we can. In this case, there was no story, and nothing to report. Inventing a tenuous and intellectually-dishonest link between Soros and OWS might get us traffic from Matt Drudge -- but that’s traffic which, frankly, we don’t particularly value or care for."

If that's the case, maybe leaving an uncorrected version of the story up for wingnut blogs to link to isn't the wisest decision ever. (Atlantic Wire)


-Wall Street reconsiders this "too big to fail" stuff-


Click to embiggen

Why do citizens have a monopoly on the citizenry? (DailyKos)


-Bonus HotD-
"Moody's Economist Says GOP Jobs Bill Would 'Likely Push The Economy Back Into Recession.'"

Which is weird, because that's exactly what it did when it was called "Bush's economic plan." (ThinkProgress)

News Roundup for 10/10/11

Getting someplace

-Headline of the Day-
"Poll: Half the country has heard about the Occupy Wall Street protests."

CNN is out with a good news/bad news poll. The good news is "roughly half" (51%) of the people CNN polled were aware of the Occupy Wall Street protests and the bad news is that, of them, 54% don't have an opinion about them either way. But the bad news breaks down further as good bad news for the 99-percenters and bad bad news for the people backing the suits. CNN reports that "27% say they agree with the movement's overall position on the financial system and social change, with 19% saying disagree with Occupy Wall Street on those issues."

In better news for the 99-percenters, Occupy Wall Street is winning the internet by an extremely wide margin. "Those who use social media were more likely to support the goals of the movement, with a full third of those respondents saying they agreed with the group's overall position," reports The Hill. "Only 14 percent of social media users said they did not support the protesters."

It's a start. Occupy Facebook! (CNN)


-GOP consistency on display-

>
Click to embiggen

No comment needed, I guess. (DailyKos)


-Bonus HotD-
"Almost Twice As Many People Have Heard of Occupy Wall Street As Rick Perry."

Or, "Fun With Mix-and-Match Polling." (Wonkette)