Posts tagged Rush Limbaugh

Band of Blusters

25
5 months ago
by filistro in

Repub­li­cans, it seems, have lost some of their mojo in recent years. They were once the party of fis­cal tough­ness, for­eign pol­icy supe­ri­or­ity and ruth­less skill when it came to wag­ing elec­tions, but demo­graphic shifts and the chang­ing tide of human events, cou­pled with increas­ing Demo­c­ra­tic strength in the new media (and some seri­ous pol­icy mis­steps by Repub­li­cans) have dimmed the sin­is­ter gleam of the once-​​mighty “vast right wing con­spir­acy.” Pol­i­tics, as we know, is never static.

But for the moment at least, the play­ing field appears to have lev­eled quite significantly.

How­ever, there is still one area where con­ser­v­a­tives out­shine lib­er­als by sev­eral orders of mag­ni­tude. This is the sphere of polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing — the “noise machine” — where Repub­li­cans reign supreme.

When it comes to devel­op­ing and spread­ing a polit­i­cal mes­sage, the Repub­li­can party oper­ates like a well-​​rehearsed rock ‘n’ roll band, with FOX News on vocals and lead gui­tar, the RNC on bass, John McCain on drums, National Review on key­board, and Sarah Palin play­ing the tri­an­gle. But the set of giant ampli­fiers that pump up the vol­ume and send the music blast­ing though the sta­dium and out into the street…that’s talk radio. And the sound sys­tem func­tions so effec­tively that by con­trast, Demo­c­ra­tic mes­sag­ing resem­bles a dis­creet lit­tle group in evening dress, play­ing cham­ber music off in a quiet cor­ner of the lounge. (more…)

The Caterpillars Are Winning

183
9 months ago
by Monotreme in

What have the cater­pil­lars been smoking?

I’ve writ­ten before about the “Repub­li­can War on Women”. It’s a meme, to be sure, but one that seems to have some stick­i­ness or even truthi­ness to it, because key Repub­li­cans keep doing things that are so glo­ri­ously tone-​​deaf.

Instead of con­cen­trat­ing on jobs, the Repub­li­cans in the House con­cen­trated on sex. House com­mit­tees inves­ti­gat­ing the con­flict between women’s pre­vi­ously estab­lished right to con­tra­cep­tive ser­vices and the desires of the Catholic Church refused to hear tes­ti­mony from women. When Minor­ity Leader Nancy Pelosi held shadow com­mit­tee meet­ing with George­town law stu­dent San­dra Fluke tes­ti­fy­ing, de facto Repub­li­can spokesman Rush Lim­baugh called Fluke a “slut”.

Faced with the ensu­ing con­tro­versy, Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee chair­man called the idea of a “Repub­li­can War on Women” a false and per­va­sive meme, liken­ing it to a myth­i­cal “War on Cater­pil­lars”. Regard­less of what he meant, the cater­pil­lars were enraged. (more…)

Praise the Lard

91
1 year ago
by filistro in

The biggest, most dan­ger­ous prob­lem cur­rently fac­ing the United States is not the deficit or the debt. It is lard. No, not the sort that gets slathered into appro­pri­a­tions bills. I’m refer­ring to the kind of lard that is packed onto the butts and bel­lies of more than half of all Amer­i­cans. The United States now has one of the high­est obe­sity rates in the world. Mis­sis­sippi is offi­cially the fat­test state, with more than 70% of its pop­u­la­tion either over­weight or obese. And while it may be lead­ing for now, a lot of other states are gain­ing fast.

(more…)

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