Progressive talker Thom Hartmann punished for Rush & other cons' sins in LA?

Clear Channel wanted to diversify the range of voices on LA radio, especially in light of the Limbaugh dust up and KFI local hosts John & Ken's remarks referring to Whitney Houston as a ''crack ho'' after her death, but instead of replacing Limbaugh or the KFI locals, they bumped nationally known progressive talker Thom Hartmann. 

In one of the most liberal cities in America that has ONE progressive commercial station and a couple of conservative ones, and in which they own two AM stations and five FM ones. 

The Black Media alliance also noticed that the station that carries Rush has the highest ratings in the LA market, but it also has a very strong signal. The progressive station is static at a range where Rush is still coming in loud and clear. 

If Clear Channel really wants to do a mea culpa for Rush, they should replace HIM with this new show, or better yet, swap signals between their low powered progressive show and their stronger signal conservative one. 

It's also hard not to notice that Clear Channel is hardly making moves to make the progressive channel, KTLK 1150 AM more successful. They have gradually replaced nationally known progressives who could draw a large audience with little known hosts, David Cruz and Clark Howard from 3-8 pm, and now have done the same in the crucial morning slot. Come to think of it, if Clear Channel wanted to try out new hosts on KTLK, why bump someone who has a national audience, that even people from out of town might spin the dial to find, instead of bumping the late afternoon hosts that even loyal listeners of KTLK switch away from? 

Either Clear Channel doesn't care about listeners who started with the station when it was Air America and stayed with for the nationally known very progressive hosts ever since, or they are actively trying to kill the format so they could then say it failed and keeping Limbaugh in spite of near universal outrage.

Does this really sound like a free market at work or a corporation drawing blood from progressives to give a transfusion to a dying right wing propaganda format? 

Contact KTLK at Programming@KTLKAM1150.com 

And Clear Channel at publicrelations@clearchannel.com 

More Clear Channel contact info

Tell them to bring back Thom Hartmann to 9-12 am on KTLK AM 1150, and move Diverse LA to the later slots or better yet, to Rush Limbaugh or John and Ken's time slots on KFI AM 640!

Apply ''No Mosque near Ground Zero'' rule to right wing violence

If Democrats like Howard Dean and Harry Reid are going to cede that the right is right about the "no mosque near Ground Zero" rule, we should at least qualify it by saying we should apply the same logic to acts of right wing violence.

But instead of saying ''no Christian churches near sites of right wing violence'' which would be as unfair as the right implying all mosques harbor terrorists, let's pick something closer to the actually inciting right wing violence: right wing talk radio and Fox News.

Certainly, Bill O'Reilly excoriated abortionist George Tiller on TV before his assassination, so applying the mosque rule, out of respect for Dr. Tiller and his family, everyone listening to right wing talk radio or watching Fox News within two blocks of the Church where he was shot should turn it off. Since most people listen to talk radio in their cars, signs should be posted telling people to turn it off before they drive through the zone of exclusion.

The should be done at that Unitarian church shooting, where the culprit said he did it because he hated Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals, and had books by Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly on his shelf. Out of respect for the two dead, seven wounded, and hundreds, terrorized, please turn off right wing talk radio in the two block radius zone of exclusion.

And certainly anti-government rhetoric motivated Tim McVeigh's attack on the Oklahoma City Federal Building, which was after all, a federal government building. They have a nice memorial there now. If you are close enough to see it, you should have already turned off Rush, especially since on the recent anniversary of the attack, he spent time talking sympathetically about the government attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco that Tim McVeigh in part felt he was avenging when he killed 168 people and wounded 680 at the OKC Federal Building.

That one was so big, maybe the zone of exclusion should extend to ALL federal buildings.

Ironically, right wing violence has touched the Ground Zero mosque controversy itself. Someone stabbed a Muslim cabbie in New York City after asking him whether he was Muslim. The attackers diaries were filled with anti-Muslim rhetoric that sounds awfully familiar. Since many cabbies are Muslim immigrants and cabs drive all over New York City, please turn off right wing talk radio two blocks before you enter the city.

I say this not asking that the government restrain anyone's freedom of speech (or listening), but ask that our friends on the right do this because they have convinced me that this is the proper way to show respect for the victims of terrorism.

It's not just Republicans that need to repudiate Rush

I got this email from the DSCC about browbeating GOP senators to repudiate Rush Limbaugh, and on one level, it's gratifying to see Democrats finally learning one of the correct lessons from the GOP: hit your opponent's strength. Do to Rush what the right did to the word "liberal" in the 80's, so that Republicans will be embarrassed to say anything that sounds remotely like any of his talking points.

I've already noticed a version of this in my college classes. Whenever a student says something about global warming being a hoax or making batteries for electric cars makes more pollution than an internal combustion engine spits out in its lifetime, I ask them, ''Where'd you hear that--on Rush Limbaugh?"

The tone is not accusatory, but for some reason, they never say yes.

There is just one problem of this shaming of Republicans: I would like to know which of the GOP's ideas so-called ''moderate'' Democrats are going to repudiate as well.

Will they forsake:

• Only taxing the rich as much as they wish to be taxed and looking the other way when they hide money in off-shore accounts or use other book-keeping scams
  
  
• Trade deals like NAFTA that screw American workers
  
  
• H-1B visas that allow high tech companies to import engineers & IT workers and leave American college grads sitting on the bench
  
  
• Privatizing government functions, including education, even though the private versions are consistently more costly and of questionable effectiveness
  
  
• Letting corporations dictate the policies and regulations that effect them as Wall Street and banks still seem to be doing with the team of Geithner, Summers, Rubin, and Bernanke writing checks for trillions with no strings attached
  
  
• Sending a black kid who robbed a 7-11 of $50 to be raped in prison and sending a white trust fund baby who broke our economy a check for billions to party with his friends, and after seeing the party, sending another check.
  
  
• In the same vein, letting health insurance and drug companies have a seat at the table crafting health care reform when they should be roasted slowly on a spit to feed the people at the table
  
  
• Letting politicians leave office and go to work for corporations they did favors for while in office
  
  
• Using fear of terrorism and nuclear weapons as an excuse to intimidate and invade nations that don't do business on terms American oil companies and banks like as is the case with Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela (the Bushies went as far as to claim al Qaeda was in Venezuela)
  
  
• Almost blasphemously, claiming we are teaching other countries democracy when we invade them and kill their people, then questioning how ''mature'' their culture is when they dare to fight back
  
  
• Never dealing honestly with why we didn't punish the two countries that sponsored al Qaeda, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In the case of the latter, they sent an agent to pick up two of the 9/11 hijacker at the airport who set them up in an apartment and funneled checks to them from the Saudi ambassador's wife.
  
  
• Claiming other countries getting a handful of nukes is somehow a threat to us without adding that no country would be foolish enough to launch one at us or give them to terrorists to detonate here since everyone knows we have THOUSANDS and would not hesitate to burn their entire country off the map before one mushroom cloud cleared here. With the Soviets, there was MAD--mutually assured destruction. Today the would be OSHOSE--our side hurt, other side exterminated.
  
  
• Intentionally blurring military defense and empire and wars of aggression. China and Russia have a tenth the military spending we do, and no one is lining up to invade them. Similarly, if a medium-sized Iraq can give us, the world's sole superpower, a bad day trying to occupy them, it is unlikely anyone would get very far with trying to occupy us or even consider it. Most of our Defense apart from the troops themselves is welfare for defense contractors.

Moderate, blue dog, DLC, or whatever you want to call them have voted with the GOP on most or all of these issues.

I would look forward to Democrats clearly separating themselves from the GOP on these points, and not just being better graded on a curve.

From: info@dscc.org
Subject: What Rush doesn't know
Date: March 7, 2009 9:03:47 AM PST

Rush Limbaugh doesn't know what he's started. Tens of thousands of you have already signed onto the DSCC's urgent call for Republican Senate leaders to denounce his shameful rhetoric - and that's just the beginning.

The Republican response has been predictable: blame the media, blame the Democrats, and rally their base. They'll do anything except tell Rush Limbaugh he's wrong.

They're hoping this will all blow over and they can go back to pretending like Rush doesn't speak for them. It's not too late for you to add your voice so we can keep the pressure on. If you sign today, we'll send your comments right to the Republican Senate leadership.

Click here to demand that Senate Republicans reject Rush Limbaugh's hateful rhetoric - We'll send them your comments. When you're finished, please forward this message to your friends and family.

The response so far has been tremendous, but we all have to do our part to fight back against ultra-conservative extremism. Join us today.

- J.B.

Remind public of GOP racist track record if they mention Wright

Both Obama and Hillary missed an opportunity when they went on Fox News only to be questioned about Rev. Wright. They could have turned it around to a discussion of Republican politician's, right wing talk radio, and even Fox News own far more extensive and virulent history of racist remarks and actions.

If the GOP tries to use Rev. Wright against Obama in fall, we should have their racist resume ready.

Which shouldn't be too hard to do.

Start with the Southern Strategy of covert appeals to Southern racists that began after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in 1964 & 1965. LBJ said he lost the South for the Democrats for a generation. He was wrong. He lost it pretty much up until today.

Racist white voters started voting Republican at the presidential level immediately, and down-ticket as racist Dixiecrats politicians migrated from the Democrats to the GOP.

In a 1970 New York Times interview, Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips was blunt about this:

The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

Reagan launched his campaign talking about "states rights" a segregationist buzzword in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where the three civil rights workers were killed in the 60s.

Starting with Reagan they began a sustained assault on affirmative action, particularly in college admissions, without bothering with even a fig-leaf of going after other forms of non-merit admissions like legacies with room temperature IQs getting in because their family members went to the school and more importantly, gave money to their endowment.

Using blacks as boogey men in campaign commercials has been a staple of the Republican politicians at all levels. Jesse Helms used his "white hands" commercial to play on white resentment of affirmative action, Papa Bush had Willie Horton to play on fear of black criminals raping white women, and the recent campaign against Harold Ford had only to imply that a white woman might want the only slightly tinted Ford to call her.

Until recently, there was the obligatory stop of GOP candidates at racist Bob Jones University, where inter-racial dating was not allowed until 2000--AFTER George W. Bush made a campaign stop.

There are also the various statements of Rush Limbaugh including his brief tenure as a sportscaster saying Donovan McNabb was only a quarterback because of affirmative action, and Bill O'Reilly being shocked that black people behaved in a nice restaurant and weren't screaming obscenities. Last Fall, Media Matters put together some of the greatest hits of Fox News racism, including Bill O'Reilly saying during Katrina that "Many, many, many" hurricane victims who failed to evacuate New Orleans are "drug-addicted ... thugs"

Besides Bush's inaction during Hurricane Katrina, you have Fox News calling black residents looters and whites "searching for supplies," and a GOP congressman saying the destruction of low income housing was god doing what they couldn't.

As recently as this primary season, Republicans were still debating whether the Confederate flag, a symbol of slavery and oppression to African Americans and most other Americans, should still fly on public property.

Mitt Romney said he would never have a Muslim in his cabinet.

In some of these cases of racism directed at blacks, the righties involved have been demoted or forced to apologize. I don't think they ever have apologized about their Muslim-baiting, particularly their talk radio shills.

Ann Coulter said Muslims should be killed or forcibly converted, Rush Limbaugh said a Muslim prisoner was covered in feces because they don't know how to wipe themselves, and Michael Savage Weiner said we should kill at least 100 million Muslims and that there was no difference the Muslims who attacked us on 9/11 and ALL the other Muslims in the world.

I have left out their Latin American immigrant-bashing, English only campaigns because they are mad someone's Vietnamese grandmother isn't learning English fast enough, fear of brown people breeding faster than whites, fear of gays recruiting our kids (so far they have only been successful with GOP politicians and preachers), and fear of anyone else they can think of that will drive people to the polls without demanding action on actual economic issues.

These are hardly the people to be lecturing the rest of us about racism.

I'm sure I've left lots of examples out, so feel free to add them.

You might also ask Media Matters to put together a "greatest hits" of GOP and/or right wing talker racism, and Outfoxed producer Robert Greenwald to expand and re-promote FOX ATTACKS BLACK AMERICA.

Contact Media Matters.

Contact Greenwald: info@bravenewfilms.org

How Democrats can be to the right of the GOP gay issues AND PRO gay marriage

As I listened to the umpteenth story these last seven years on Republican torture it occurred to me that Democrats have a profound advantage on gay issues--we only support VOLUNTARY gay sex.

When the Abu Ghraib story broke, the defenses offered by the right in addition to the "few bad apples" lie was that it was no worse than a fraternity hazing or "Skull & Bones initiation" as Rush Limbaugh said (an inadvertent slip revealing what kind of people populate these 'elite' fraternities).

So I guess these republicans and their apologists think VOLUNTARY gay sex is bad, but COERCING likely heterosexuals to have gay sex at Abu Ghraib and in out of control police stations on "Guiliani time" where I seem to recall a guy in custody being sodomized with a plunger. Bush has fought tooth and nail to keep the power to do these tortures and only this week barred the use of sexual torture (and even then left some wiggle room so he could still authorize it). On a less trumpeted issue, it's not hard to figure out which side of the prison rape issue republicans fall on. Most have no trouble with gay rape of heterosexuals when it's part of punishing someone for selling a dime bag of pot or the like (truly violent offenders or big gangsters aren't in much danger).

The basis of right wing concern about gays is that they will somehow "convert" people to be gay. The vast majority of gays, especially those who want to get married, want to do their gay things only with other gays.

By contrast, if you are a heterosexual and cross the GOP, you could be forced to perform gay sex acts.

There's got to be a way to boil this down to a bumper sticker.

I bring this issue up at all because I know some democratic candidates for president will be tempted co-opt GOP positions on gays like opposing gay marriage and or even civil unions.

This approach could give them a chance to appeal to right wing homophobes without kicking a loyal constituency in the nuts as supposed "centrist" Democrats seem so willing to do.

Would saying Dems only support VOLUNTARY gay sex help with righties?
	NO-- the right would really prefer lynching. anything that emphasizes live and let live is repugnant to them
	NO--righties would not be able to process something they didn't hear from Rush or Fox News. They are the gimp locked in the trunk of the right wing co
	MAYBE--if it got enough airplay and Democrats had the balls to do it (two ginormous and unlikely ifs)
	YES--the fear of being raped would trump the more obtuse threat of being converted by osmosis if gays married.
	I'm George W. Bush, and sodomy is not gay unless I say so. See sodomy is gay sex between two terrist loving Democrats. When you rape a prisoner, yur jes showin' em who's boss.
	other
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