• Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: March 9, 2012

    These are my links for March 8th through March 9th:

    • Limbaugh attack boomerangs on the White House – Perhaps the left carried on a little too long and a little too loudly regarding Rush Limbaugh’s nasty language about Sandra Fluke. Conservative activist Penny Nance, executive director of Concerned Women for America, has sent a letter to the White House chief of staff demanding President Obama’s super PAC live up to the same standard Democrats have articulated for Republicans and Rush Limbaugh.

    • Apple at center of e-book price-fixing allegations – The Justice Department has threatened to sue Apple and major publishers in a high-profile case that could reshape the digital-books market, driving down prices but also potentially shifting market power from publishers to e-commerce giant Amazon.

      The government warned Apple and five major book companies that it intends to file a lawsuit accusing them of colluding to boost the prices of e-books, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. Several of the publishers are already in talks to settle the matter, although those discussions appear to be at an early and uncertain stage, the Journal reported.

      The publishers in question include Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group, Macmillan and HarperCollins Publishers.

    • Limbaugh spurns Sleep Train’s bid to resume advertising ties – First it was Sleep Train Mattress Centers that spurned its longtime ally and business partner Rush Limbaugh.

      Now Limbaugh is returning the favor – and the split between the Sacramento retailer and the controversial radio host appears to be permanent.

      Limbaugh on Thursday rejected Sleep Train’s offer to resume advertising on his national radio show and rehire Limbaugh as a paid spokesman. Limbaugh’s spokesman said the conservative commentator would no longer carry Sleep Train’s ads “in the future.”

      Sleep Train stopped advertising on the show last Friday, becoming one of the first sponsors to drop Limbaugh. The company’s decision came two days after Limbaugh called a Georgetown University law student a “slut” and a “prostitute” over her stance on health insurance coverage for contraception.

      Limbaugh apologized to the student over the weekend.

      Sleep Train’s decision was especially noteworthy because Limbaugh and Sleep Train chief executive Dale Carlsen have known each other since the 1980s, when Sleep Train was a small company and Limbaugh was an on-air personality at Sacramento’s KFBK (1530 AM).

    • Kucinich May Still Run from Washington – Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who just lost his re-election bid in a Democratic primary on Tuesday, did not close the door to running for Congress in a new district — in a new state, CBS News reports.

      He said “there’s new possibilities that are being born at this moment.”

      Should he decide to run again, Washingtion state’s “most appealing choices for a Kucinich run could be the first and sixth congressional districts which lack incumbents because of the retirements of Democratic Reps. Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks.”

    • Scandal at The Washington Post: Fraud, Lobbying & Insider Trading
    • Pro-Obama PAC Won’t Give Back Maher’s Money – Current and former White House aides on Thursday rejected demands by a conservative group that a Super PAC supporting President Obama refund a $1 million check from comedian and talk show host Bill Maher because of coarse comments he’s made about Sarah Palin and other Republican women.

      While Obama earlier this week denounced similar comments that radio talk show host made about a college student, Sandra Fluke, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters the president is not going to get involved in the Maher battle.

    • Romney Really Might Not Have the Delegates by June – The Republican primary has revealed distinct geographic tendencies. Mitt Romney is dominant in New England and in the West. Newt Gingrich has run well in the Deep South, while Rick Santorum has done well in caucus states, the Great Plains, and the peripheral South (it remains to be seen whether his support has bled into Gingrich’s strength in the Deep South). That leaves the Midwest as a battleground between Romney and Santorum.

      While Romney had a good night on Super Tuesday, the truth is that he did nothing to alter the basic regional nature of his support. He won handily in New England and the West, essentially tied in the Midwest, and ran poorly in the South.

    • I refuse to go to the Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner – no one should go
    • AD-38: Scott Wilk and Edward Headington Officially File For California Assembly » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Scott Wilk and Edward Headington Officially File For California Assembly
    • Mayor Barrett Indicates When He’ll Decide About Run For Governor – Milwaukee News Story – WISN Milwaukee – Mayor Barrett Indicates When He’ll Decide About Run For Wisconsin Governor
    • Mayor Barrett Indicates When He’ll Decide About Run For Wisconsin Governor – There are some new developments in the potential recall race for governor.

      For the first time, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is putting a timeframe on his decision whether to enter the race.

      He’s running for re-election as mayor but will he also jump into a possible recall race for governor?

      He’s not answering that question yet, but now, for the first time, the mayor is indicating when he might make up his mind.

      With an election for mayor less than four weeks away, Barrett continued to deflect any questions about a possible run for governor.

      “I am certainly considering running for governor, but I haven’t made a decision quite honestly,” Barrett said.

      Barrett spoke at a forum sponsored by Wispolitics.com, and afterward, 12 News reporter Kent Wainscott asked him whether Milwaukee voters deserved to know whether he plans to enter a likely governor’s recall race.

      “I don’t know what the future holds, and that’s why I didn’t deny that this is something that I’m thinking about, because I am thinking about it, and I think the voters know that,” Barrett said.

    • GOP strategist: Appeal to Latino voters is party’s ‘great challenge’ – Republican Party strategist Whit Ayres says a new Fox News poll showing a strong preference for Democrats among Latino voters underscores what he called “the great challenge of the Republican Party going forward” – doing better with non-white voters, especially Latinos and Asians.
    • President 2012 Video: Fred Davis on Mitt Romney and How to Win in November | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 Video: Fred Davis on Mitt Romney and How to Win in November
    • Obama adviser David Axelrod slams Romney for Limbaugh while planning to go on Maher – While slamming Mitt Romney for not standing up to the “strident voices” on his side, a top Obama advisor is planning to spend some quality time with one on his own, The Daily has learned.

      David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior campaign strategist, is scheduled to appear on Bill Maher’s late-night talk show within the next few weeks, according to Kelley Carville, an HBO spokesman.

      As the controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Sandra Fluke continued, a former Obama White House official today joined Republicans in pointing out that Maher, who recently donated $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC, has a history of his misogynistic slurs.

      Last year, he was rebuked by the National Organization for Women for calling Sarah Palin a “dumb tw*t.”

      “palin is right to point out that bill maher has said some pretty disgusting things about women, comedian or not. they are rush like,” Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of President Obama’s Council on Economic Advisors, and currently a professor at the University of Chicago, tweeted.

      After Obama spoke with Fluke, the Georgetown University Law Student called a “slut” and “prostitute” by Limbaugh, Palin challenged Priorities USA to return Maher’s donation.

      “Pres. Obama says he called Sandra Fluke because of his daughters. For the sake of everyone’s daughter, why doesn’t his super PAC return the $1 million he got from a rabid misogynist?,” Palin wrote Tuesday on her Facebook page.

    • Senate rejects GOP measure to construct Keystone pipeline, 56-42 – The Senate has rejected a GOP plan to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline after President Obama made personal calls to Democrats urging them to oppose it.

      The 56-42 vote staves off an election-year rebuke of Obama, but will give political ammunition to backers of TransCanada Corp.’s plan to build a pipeline connecting Alberta’s massive tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries.

      Despite Obama’s efforts, 11 Democrats brushed off Obama on the vote and sided with Republicans.

      The 11 Democratic defections were Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Bob Casey (Pa.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Jon Tester (Mont.) and Jim Webb (Va.).

      No Republicans voted against the measure, and 60 votes were needed to move forward.

    • AB-38: Scott Wilk Hyping Santa Clarita Valley Republican Assembly Weekend Straw Poll » Flap’s California Blog – AB-38: Scott Wilk Hyping Santa Clarita Valley Republican Assembly Weekend Straw Poll
    • CA-26: Democrats Attacking Democrats Over Julia Brownley Carpetbagging Issue | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-26: Democrats Attacking Democrats Over Julia Brownley Carpetbagging Issue
    • Bill Bennett: A lesson in how to turn the tables – Bill Bennett had this to say on CNN about the Rush Limbaugh hypocrisy fest: “My question is whether the president will give back the million dollars Bill Maher gave him. I don’t know how he’s going to explain that to Sasha and Malia, when that guy uses language that would make Rush blush.”

      The comment is, in a word, perfect. The gentle tone of irony contrasts with the left’s hyperventilating. The matter-of-fact assertion highlights how the left’s “outrage” is reserved for political opponents’ entertainers. And his gentle rebuke to the president — who chose to drag his daughters into a phony political gambit — is the frosting on the well- baked cake.

      Notice, in fact, how it is now the representative of the left who wants to move on? The Obama spinners have got as much mileage out of Limbaugh as they can, and if the conversation is now going to turn to their side, well then, for heaven’s sake, it’s time to turn the page! Or, as Dave Weigel put it in reference to David Axelrod’s inanity (“If Romney couldn’t stand up to “the most strident voices in your party, how can he stand up to Ahmadinejad?”): “Axelrod has no case. He’s a nomad flogging a camel to get one last mile out of it after it’s already crossed half the Gobi with no water.”

    • Carbonite shoots its business model in the foot – The decline in the price of Carbonite stock since it announced it was dropping its longstanding advertising on the Rush Limbaugh show is not the real story of the damage done to Carbonite.

      The price of Carbonite stock has been dropping since October for reasons unrelated to this controversy, although it did fall off a small cliff this week.

      The real problem for Carbonite and its shareholders is that in leaving behind 15 million Rush listeners, Carbonite has shot its business model in the foot.

    • Video: Why Run the Los Angeles Marathon? | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Video: Why Run the Los Angeles Marathon?
    • Poll Watch: U.S. Unemployment Rate Increases to 9.1 Per Cent | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Poll Watch: U.S. Unemployment Rate Increases to 9.1 Per Cent
    • CA-25: Rep Buck McKeon Proposes Afghanistan Surge | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-25: Rep Buck McKeon Proposes Afghanistan Surge
    • SD-19: Republican Mike Stoker to Run for California State Senate » Flap’s California Blog – SD-19: Republican Mike Stoker to Run for California State Senate
    • CA-25: The Heat is On Rep Buck McKeon Over Defense Contractor Contributions | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-25: The Heat is On Rep Buck McKeon Over Defense Contractor Contributions
    • The Morning Flap: March 8, 2012 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Morning Flap: March 8, 2012
    • SD-27: Republican Marine Lt. Colonel and LA County Prosecutor to Run for California State Senate » Flap’s California Blog – SD-27: Republican Marine Lt. Colonel and LA County Prosecutor to Run for California State Senate
    • Poll Watch: California Governor Jerry Brown’s Tax Increase Proposal in Trouble » Flap’s California Blog – Poll Watch: California Governor Jerry Brown’s Tax Increase Proposal in Trouble
  • Rush Limbaugh

    Re: Rush Limbaugh – Should Conservatives Make an Example of Carbonite and ProFlowers?

    Professor Jacobson makes the case for a boycott.

    Liberal groups have seized on a strategy I didn’t think would be effective, but has had some success, to go after advertisers of prominent conservative media personalities.

    Media Matters explicitly seeks to bring down Fox News and investigate its executives, and Fox News advertisers have been targeted by groups like Color of Change, which has targeted Glenn Beck, Eric Bolling, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan and Andrew Breitbart.

    Now Rush Limbaugh advertisers are the target because of an analogy he used.  As Jimmie Bise points out, Rush’s comments were overblown if one listens to what he actually said, but nonetheless, the use of “slut” or “prostitute” even in an analogy was inappropriate, as Rush has acknowledged.  It also distracted from the attack on religious freedom which is the heart of the controversy.

    As has become the pattern, Rush’s advertisers immediately were attacked and threatened, and several gave in quickly, like Quicken Loans and Sleep Number, pulling their advertising.

    No advertiser was more associated with Rush than Carbonite, an online computer back up company.  Rush often would read Carbonite’s ads himself, and would tout their service.

    Read it all.

    Seems sort of a waste for Carbonite, since they are just spewing money anyway. But, to use advertising to suppress free speech reminds me what happened during the California Proposition 8 election and its aftermath.

    The LEFT loves this tactic and the RIGHT is tired of taking it.

    I will NO longer purchase flowers from ProFlowers.

    I urge my fellow conservatives to send the message to ProFlowers and other advertisers.