Last June…
Not a real cover of TIME and not a real cover story in TIME. As TIME pointed out.
He pretends these things are “jokes,” can’t you pussies take a joke, yadda yadda, but they’re not really. If he could steal the whole thing and keep it for all eternity he would. He’s both a megalomaniac and a childish clumsy fool, and the fool part isn’t making him one bit less dangerous.
Trump is giving a “speech” (a series of blurts and ramblings) to celebrate his successful coup.
I suppose he means there were people who thought he was a bad man before he started running for president. Well no kidding. Birtherism? The Central Park 5? Yes we thought he was a bad man; of course we did. He stands around preening and smirking about how bad he is and also whines about people who think he’s bad. He’s not very alert to cause and effect, it seems.
Trump calling other people “mean and vicious.”
Meanwhile Evil Junior is contributing his mite.
Donald Trump Jr. posted a picture on Instagram calling Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) a “pussy” after the former GOP presidential candidate announced that he would be voting to convict President Trump on one of two impeachment charges. The picture featured Romney wearing high-waisted jeans, and was captioned: “Mom Jeans, Because you’re a pussy.”
And what could be more disgusting and contemptible than to be a woman?
It’s always useful to know what they think of us. Depressing, but useful.
President Donald Trump made a striking claim Monday, insisting it was he who ensured that people with preexisting medical problems will always be covered by health insurance.
He wasn’t.
Duh. That’s the whole point of the ACA – spreading the risk.
He also complained anew that Democrats didn’t allow him to send lawyers to the impeachment inquiry. The opposite is true: Democrats invited him to send lawyers to the inquiry and he said no.
He should have been impeached on day one for being such a relentless shameless liar.
Trump’s administration has been pressing in court for full repeal of the Obama-era law, including provisions that protect people with preexisting conditions from health insurance discrimination.
With “Obamacare” [the ACA] still in place, preexisting conditions continue to be covered by regular individual health insurance plans.
Insurers must take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy people and those who are in poor health, or have a history of medical problems.
Which is the whole point. Without that, people quickly get priced out of being able to get health insurance – because they need it most – and that’s the problem the ACA is meant to solve. It would be better to socialize the whole system, but short of that, the ACA is what there is.
He won’t stop lying until he stops breathing.
Editing to add: see Skeletor’s comment. Some of these are unsourced. I have to run so can’t Google them right now.
Editing to add 2, next morning. Skeletor is right. A passage from John K. Wilson’s book on Limbaugh has details – someone going by the name “Cobra” put the James Earl Ray one on Wikiquotes and it spread via Rachel Maddow and others. And now by me.
The Surly Southern Liberal has a collection of some of Limbaugh’s more poisonous assertions.
Top 10 Racist Rush Limbaugh Quotes
1. “I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
[Edit: it’s in dispute whether he said that or not.]
2. “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”
Ok we’re only two in and already I’m reeling back in disbelief. Women lose jobs for saying men are not women, and this guy keeps his for saying we miss the guy who murdered Martin Luther King.
3. “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
[I’m skipping 4. because I don’t understand what he was getting at.]
5. “Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
6. “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
7. “They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?”
8. “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller).”
9. “I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.”
And Melania “Be Best” Trump handed him that medal.
Next day update: Snopes confirms some and not others.
What’s true
Some of the statements included in the list are correctly attributed to Limbaug
What’s false
Some of the statements included in the list lack sufficient supporting evidence to confirm whether or not Limbaugh said them.
There’s also the revolting cynicism of David Brooks’s saying hey why didn’t “Trump opponents” – i.e. Representatives who think he should not be committing crimes – just concentrate on fixing the potholes instead of doing their constitutional duty to prevent the president from abusing his power to extort political favors from vulnerable allies. Gee, I don’t know, maybe it’s because they really do actually think that a president should not be abusing his power to extort political favors from vulnerable allies. I kind of hope they do, if you want to know the truth.
I kind of think Brooks ought to.
Why did the Times hire him, again? I never can remember.
David Brooks. Again. He tries my patience.
Suppose Mitch McConnell hadn’t blocked every single bill the Democratic House sent to the Senate?
Plus…
He tries my patience.
This is how one inspires women in leadership?? Really?
It says “the LGBT community” but the ugly cluttered poster is all about the T. And what does inspiring women in leadership have to do with gender unicorns and being told to “embrace discomfort”? Like, what, women don’t get enough opportunities to embrace discomfort just in trying to navigate the world, now they have to put up with people ostensibly concerned with women ordering them to embrace discomfort and get all worked up about pronouns?
Piss off, is all I feel like saying to that poster.
Here’s a bigger version for easier reading:
Yes I too understand why people ask this: it’s because they’re intrusive controlling impertinent creeps.
Boom, 20+ years of friendship thrown overboard.
Also notice the unctuous gluey nonsense about how it would mean a lot to a lot of people if person A stopped following person B on Twitter. If Steve is right about that then people need to get a fucking life.
What’s Ronson known for? Well…
We live in stupid times.
Originally a comment by Artymorty on Needs.
Here’s a personal anecdote about an encounter I had with Canadian pro-sex-work feminists:
A couple years ago when I ran an event venue I booked a women’s storytelling group and the theme of this particular gathering was something like “What makes you happy?” It was billed as an evening for amateur women speakers to share stories of finding empowerment in doing things for themselves — doing what makes them happy instead of doing things for the sake of others’ feelings. Quickly sold out; 200+ capacity; about a half a dozen speakers. Sounds great! I happened to be filling in as a bartender in the Hall that night so I was able to watch the whole thing.
Turns out not one, not two, but THREE of the speakers were former sex workers — two prostitutes and a phone sex operator. (And by all appearances they all seemed quite middle-class.) Two of them gave talks that were entirely about their sex work and how “empowering” it was. It was so bizarre. I mean, an event that’s supposed to be about women doing stuff for themselves instead of for others, and it was completely overrun by women talking about men paying to use women’s bodies for the sake of men’s pleasure. (ALL of the speakers preambled some blather about it being a safe space and pledged that they were opposed to “TERFS AND SWERFS” — ugh, “TERFSANDSWERFS TERFS’N’SWERFS TERFSSSWERFS” they kept saying it, and they slurred the words together as if the phrase was so familiar by now it just melded into one word and there was no need to bother enunciating each individual syllable anymore.)
As I recall it, the two sex worker talks had the same themes: they both kept repeating that their sex work was empowering and I did it because I wanted to, not because I was forced to. But they both endured horrible childhood sexual abuse from older relatives; both were suicidal as teens as a result of the sexual abuse; both were explicit that they turned to sex work in a kind of self-harming way, as an attempt to process debilitating mental health issues around their sexual abuse — self-hatred; body hatred; psychological issues to do with father figures; sexual trauma; etc. Doesn’t that sound like the opposite of empowerment to you? Sure as hell does to me. They sounded like victims. What it sounded like to me was that these women were seeking to destigmatize their trauma; they wanted us to understand why they dropped out of university and fell into prostitution for a while, and their doth-protest-too-much assertions that it was all so “empowering” were, like, a way to try to claim some control of their life’s narrative and frame it around courage and dignity, or something. It’s one thing to want people to understand that prostitutes are human beings deserving of compassion and dignity but that’s not the same thing as endorsing prostitution and even going so far as to celebrate it as female empowerment. (Of course, it’s exactly because prostitutes are human beings deserving of compassion and dignity that rational people want to end prostitution.) I think that distinction was entirely lost on every one of those speakers. Like with the trans debate, this is a men’s rights movement masquerading as a women’s rights one, and it’s turning everything upside down. I still can’t believe 200 women paid to see a group of women talk about self-empowerment and self-enjoyment and got an infomercial for prostitution instead, and the current social climate is so toxic and intimidating that I didn’t see a single one of them withhold her applause.
Mike Burns at Media Matters on Limbaugh being loathsome way back in 2011:
Rush Limbaugh has a long and ugly history of race baiting. Yesterday was no exception. Limbaugh said that First Lady Michelle Obama was booed at a NASCAR event because she has exhibited “uppity-ism.” Today, however, Limbaugh acted as if nothing controversial had happened.
Mm, yeah, what could possibly be controversial about that.
What Limbaugh said:
NASCAR people, as are most people in this country, are mature, tolerant people who fully understand when they’re being insulted and condescended to. And they remember being called bitter clingers. They know that in their hearts the Obamas don’t like them. We’ve taken notice of this as has, by the way, Chris Matthews and a lot of congressional Democrats are also fully aware that the Obamas just don’t like a lot of people and they don’t like hanging around a lot of people.
What utter bullshit. He should read Becoming to underline what bullshit it is. How much time has Limbaugh spent with school kids gardening? How many public schools has he given encouraging speeches in?
I’ll tell you something else: We don’t like paying millions of dollars for Mrs. Obama’s vacations. The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why when the husband and the wife are going to the same place the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747.
I’m sure he’s been very hard on Trump’s travel habits. Right? Hasn’t he?
NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it’s a little bit of uppity-ism. First ladies have not been known to hop their own 757s four hours ahead of their husband when they’re both going to the same place.
That is absolutely a racist dogwhistle. He knows it, Michelle Obama knows it, he knows Michelle Obama knows it. The man is a turd.
Limbaugh’s comments were highlighted by ABC News, The New York Times, The Daily Caller, the Huffington Post, and Mediaite, which described them as “obvious race-baiting.” ABC’s Jake Tapper noted that “uppity” means “presumptuous but is loaded with racist connotations” and is “[o]ften used to describe African-Americans who don’t know their place, in the view of white society.”
Tapper also pointed out that when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas denounced the investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee into allegations that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill he called it “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.”
…
Today Limbaugh again discussed Michelle Obama’s appearance at the NASCAR race, referred to her as Mooch-elle (as is his custom), and called the booing “totally understandable.” But he didn’t even bother to discuss the controversy, much less apologize for his racially charged remark.
Give that man a medal.
Matthew Gertz expands on the subject at Media Matters:
It is nonetheless revealing that it was Trump who awarded Limbaugh the medal. You can draw a straight line between Limbaugh’s rise to prominence and his acceptance by the Republican establishment and the president’s own conquest of the party.
Limbaugh has had a virtually unmatched influence on Republican politics for the last 30 years, rising from obscurity to become a kingmaker who described himself as “the titular head” of the GOP. Speaking daily to an audience which grew to tens of millions, he converted listeners, often working-class whites who in the past might have been Democratic voters, into loyal “dittoheads” who spouted the platitudes of conservatism and supported Republicans. Party leaders — from the previous three GOP presidents on down — learned to praise and cater to him, while those who crossed him quickly reversed themselves.
…
Limbaugh’s career shows that by relying on a toxic slurry of bigotry, conspiracy theories, smears, and right-wing talking points, you can win a massive audience of devoted fans who will shower you with lucre and hang on your every word. And it demonstrates that once you achieve a certain trajectory in conservative politics, you become effectively inured to the costs that disgusting remarks might otherwise bring. Once that standard was set in right-wing media, it was only a matter of time before a political entrepreneur tested the same mix in a national political context.
In other words Trump is just Limbaugh but stupider. I wonder if Limbaugh is kicking himself for not doing it instead of Trump.
Now Trump is hating on public schools. Naturally: schools are there to make guys like him a profit.
If for some reason you haven’t been clear about what President Trump thinks about traditional public schools, consider what he said about them in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
There was this: “For too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools.”
That’s cute. It makes public schools sound like gulags.
Trump spent most of his education-related comments on the subject of “school choice,” which he and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have put at the top of their education agenda. DeVos has said her chief priority was expanding alternatives to traditional public schools, which she once called “a dead end.”
A dead end because they don’t make anyone rich. Every human activity should make a profit for someone.
Ugh.
Repeat to infinity and beyond.
Trump, Limbaugh, medal, of freedom.
There was Mother Teresa, “a heroine of our times,” and Rosa Parks, “a living icon for freedom in America.” Elie Wiesel kept “watch against the forces of hatred,” while Jackie Robinson “struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom, and the American way of life.”
I wouldn’t have led with Anjezë Bojaxhiu aka Mother Teresa, since she was an enemy of freedom and not the friend to the poor she was made out to be; the other three are much better illustrations of the point. There are humanitarians, and then there are their opposites. Rush Limbaugh is their opposite. Limbaugh despises humanitarianism and mocks it for fun and profit.
Now, joining them and other recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award bestowed by the government on a civilian, is Rush Limbaugh, “the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.”
Spoken like a true bully. What’s the highest value? Fightingandwinning!
“Rush Limbaugh, thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country,” Trump said.
Bollocks. Limbaugh got rich doing what he does; it has nothing to do with devotion to our country or to anything else that’s not Rush Limbaugh.
But before first lady Melania Trump could finish draping the medal around Limbaugh’s neck, critics of the talk-show host began to recirculate online some of the most derogatory and inflammatory remarks he’s made over the course of his career against women (whom he has regularly labeled “feminazis”), black people, Native Americans, immigrants and the disabled
community, among others.
(Why “the disabled community” but not “the immigrant community”? Commonalities are not the same thing as communities. Bad journalistic habit.)
They pointed to the time Limbaugh — a divisive media figure who has been accused of racist and sexist remarks — called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” because of her support of women’s access to birth control. Or when he promoted the debunked birther claim* that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Or when he questioned why Native Americans would be upset about their forced removal and ethnic cleansing since “they all have casinos.” Or when he compared asylum seekers coming to the U.S. border to the invasion of Normandy. Or when he said that actor Michael J. Fox was faking the symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease.
*the lie
…
Limbaugh’s fans and supporters, on the other hand, said it was fitting that such a role model would get public recognition. Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany thanked the host for having “inspired a generation.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) agreed, calling the honor “well-deserved.” Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, ripped Democrats for not rising to their feet in the House chamber for Limbaugh.
Yes, why wouldn’t they leap to their feet to applaud an honor given to a guy who makes a lot of money insulting and jeering at the underdogs of the world?
It never stops.
You couldn’t make it up. A woman is invited to give a lecture, and a man takes to Twitter to wonder how he can “proceed” in this tragic emergency.
Yes, bub, it is indeed a matter of freedom of speech and no-platforming, as well as a matter of sexism and misogyny, a matter of bullying and silencing, a matter of meddling and shutting down.
I wonder how much Christopher Lloyd would like it if he were invited to give a lecture at a university and another academic denounced him on Twitter and mused aloud about how to prevent him from giving that lecture. Would he think that was perfectly all right because he still has “numerous platforms” which he “uses daily”?
Note the unconscious sexism of that bit. He’s repulsed that Kathleen Stock has ways to say things in public and that she uses them, daily. The hussy! How dare she! Why doesn’t she know her place?!
It just never stops.
Just five years ago, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh went on a pro-tobacco rant on his show, during which he downplayed the risks of smoking, said it’s “a myth” that secondhand smoke causes illness or death and argued that smokers aren’t at any greater risk than people who “eat carrots.”
Smoking and eating carrots are not mutually exclusive.
“Smokers aren’t killing anybody,” the conservative host declared in an April 2015 segment of the “Rush Limbaugh Show,” then argued that tobacco users should be thanked because their purchases generate tax dollars that fund children’s health care programs.
“I’m just saying there ought to be a little appreciation shown for them, instead of having them hated and reviled,” Limbaugh said. “I would like a medal for smoking cigars, is what I’m saying.”
So smoking is a right-wing cause? People on the left are all stupid smoking-avoiders because it’s so politically correct, and good honest folks on the right all smoke like chimneys because God and country and tobacco? Is that it?
Fast forward to Monday, when Limbaugh, 69, went on his radio show to announce that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Limbaugh said he has begun treatment for the cancer, but didn’t go into details, the Daily News reported. He only said he had noticed shortness of breath close to his birthday on Jan. 12, then had two professionals diagnose the cancer on Jan. 20.
I wonder if he’ll find a way to blame the left for that too. We messed with his pleasure in smoking, and we made him have lung cancer.
On his show, Limbaugh talked about the glamour of smoking and how “cool” it was, the Daily News reported.
That is neither cute nor funny nor politically incorrect. It’s just bad. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known, and smoking is not healthy, so using a popular radio show to promote its coolness is bad. Very bad.
This isn’t like other protests. This is the protesters threatening, browbeating, and assaulting people attending a discussion of women’s rights. It’s mostly men threatening and assaulting mostly women.
The woman in the pink hat is holding a sign that says “women’s voices matter,” and a large man lunges at her and shoves her. So…women’s voices don’t matter? They’re going with that? That’s what they want to tell us?
The “protesters” hop up and down screaming “TERFs out!”
They’re not protesting exploitation or oppression or injustice…they’re protesting women who are trying to defend their rights against men who demand – with menaces – admission to the category “women” despite the brute fact that they are men. That’s not a glorious cause, that’s not a people’s flag, that’s not freedom, that’s not no child shall go hungry, it’s not anything resembling a path to a better world. It’s men bullying and pushing and demanding and punishing. It’s the same old boss just like the same old boss. It’s ugly, it’s angry, it’s mean, it would stamp on you if it could.
More on the “have you ever considered doing sex work?” question:
Members of Parliament were in the House of Commons for debate on a Conservative motion seeking to condemn the decision by the Parole Board of Canada to release a convicted murderer on day parole in Quebec City and allow him to “meet women, but only to meet [his] sexual needs.”
So that’s a question for conservatives? And MPs on the left think it’s fine to send male murderers out to get their “sexual needs” met? I’m on the left, but I lean toward thinking women don’t exist to meet the “sexual needs” of murderers (or anyone else). I lean toward thinking women aren’t a kind of implement for the use of men.
Conservatives have hammered the government over the past week on why the case managers for the killer allowed him to search out women to fulfill his “sexual needs” and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said last week an investigation is taking place.
Why only conservatives? The NDP think that approach is just fine?
“I would ask the honourable member to consider listening to the voices of sex workers,” said NDP MP Laurel Collins, who represents the riding of Victoria.
All sex workers are pleased to have murders on day parole sent to them for getting the ol’ needs met?
“Sex workers are saying that sex work is work, and I also ask the honourable member if he considers the Harper government’s decision to implement Bill 36, which criminalized the work environments, the establishments that sex workers go to to feel safe, that criminalized their ability to hire security, if he acknowledges that this is a factor in this death and many others.”
Pimps, you mean?
So pimps are there to protect the women from murderers?
I don’t think so. Pimps are there to take a cut.
In response to Collins, Viersen said: “I would just respond to that by asking the honourable member across the way if it’s an area of work that she has ever considered and if that is an appropriate –”
His remark immediately prompted calls of “shame on you” from other members in the House of Commons.
I don’t think so. I think he has a point. I think there is a real issue about “privileged” women (and men of course) promoting “sex work” who would never do it themselves and would likely not be thrilled if their daughters took it up. I think that’s what he was talking about, and it is a relevant question. The “sex work” performed by women who meet the “needs” of men is not work like factory or farm or transportation work.
Good question.
On a completely unrelated subject, what does pole dancing have to do with football? And what does football have to do with pole dancing?
