Advertisers Are Pulling out of Controversial Programming

By John Easley
The toxic environment that right wing talk radio has created is now destroying it as Premiere Networks is circulating a list of 98 advertisers who don’t want their ads to appear on Hannity, Beck, or Limbaugh.
Taylor on Radio-Info had this note that Premiere Networks is circulating:

To all Traffic Managers: The information below applies to your Premiere Radio Networks commercial inventory. More than 350 different advertisers sponsor the programs and services provided to your station on a barter basis. Like advertisers that purchase commercials on your radio station from your sales staff, our sponsors communicate specific rotations, daypart preferences and advertising environments they prefer. . .They’ve specifically asked that you schedule their commercials in dayparts or programs free of content that you know are deemed to be offensive or controversial (for example, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Leykis, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity). Those are defined as environments likely to stir negative sentiment from a very small percentage of the listening public.

 The advertisers who no longer want any part of right wing talk radio include major corporate heavyweights like Ford, GM, Toyota, Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm, McDonald’s, and Subway. Radio industry experts are already speculating that the advertiser flight from controversial shows could change the talk radio business.
Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, and Beck are four of the top seven rated shows on talk radio. Combined they have an average weekly listenership of 46.5 million +, but without big time corporate advertisers these shows are in jeopardy. Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Beck and all the other right wing talkers may be confronted with the choice of either toning it down, or facing extinction.
Advertisers are risk adverse. They won’t advertise their products or services on programs that have the potential to damage their reputation and brand. It wasn’t until the Color of Change boycott against Glenn Beck that advertisers had to worry about this issue. Now that advertisers are realizing that they will be held accountable for their decision to associate themselves with hate speech, they are fleeing those conservative talk radio hosts who court controversy.
The fact that the names on the Premiere list are conservative talkers once again illustrates the fact that both sides do not do this.
Defenders of Limbaugh and his ilk often scream about free speech, but the reality is that when a Limbaugh or Hannity or Beck says something controversial the American people have the right as consumers to choose not purchase products and services from companies that financially support these hosts.
This isn’t a suppression of speech. It is the free market at work. If the advertiser demand for extremist conservative talk radio vanishes, those programs will eventually leave the air. Glenn Beck still had millions of people watching his program when Fox News canned him. FNC got rid of Beck because they couldn’t make any money on his show.
After decades of unchecked dominance, activists have finally found the key to holding talk radio accountable. The fact that the boycott success achieved against Glenn Beck is being replicated against Rush Limbaugh provides more evidence that advertiser boycotts work.
The irony is that the same free market that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and the others claim to be championing is sowing the seeds of their demise.
Image: TPM

Narwhal: President's Obama's "Top Secret" Campaign Project Could Change Political Races

by Anne Laurie

I’m not savvy enough to judge, but Slate’s Sasha Issenberg says the Obama re-election campaign’s “top-secret” Project Narwhal “could change this race, and many to come“:

... This year, however, as part of a project code-named Narwhal, Obama’s team is working to link once completely separate repositories of information so that every fact gathered about a voter is available to every arm of the campaign. Such information-sharing would allow the person who crafts a provocative email about contraception to send it only to women with whom canvassers have personally discussed reproductive views or whom data-mining targeters have pinpointed as likely to be friendly to Obama’s views on the issue.

From a technological perspective, the 2012 campaign will look to many voters much the same as 2008 did. There will not be a major innovation that seems to herald a new era in electioneering, like 1996’s debut of candidate Web pages or their use in fundraising four years later; like online organizing for campaign events in 2004 or the subsequent emergence of social media as a mass-communication tool in 2008. This year’s looming innovations in campaign mechanics will be imperceptible to the electorate, and the engineers at Obama’s Chicago headquarters racing to complete Narwhal in time for the fall election season may be at work at one of the most important. If successful, Narwhal would fuse the multiple identities of the engaged citizen—the online activist, the offline voter, the donor, the volunteer—into a single, unified political profile…

More broadly, Narwhal would bring new efficiency across the campaign’s operations. No longer will canvassers be dispatched to knock on the doors of people who have already volunteered to support Obama. And if a donor has given the maximum $2,500 in permitted contributions, emails will stop hitting him up for money and start asking him to volunteer instead. Those familiar with Narwhal’s development say the completion of such a technical infrastructure would also be a gift to future Democratic candidates who have struggled to organize political data that has been often arbitrarily siloed depending on which software vendor had primacy at a given moment…

What else is on the agenda for the weekend?

Here's a preview of the President's 17 minute video "The Road Traveled" scheduled for release on March 15th.  Please watch and share.
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Rush Limbaugh Only Proves How the Right Wing Media Spread Their Lie

What Rush Limbaugh did to a an innocent college student is an extreme but not solitary example in the bizarro  world of the right wing media.  Up is down and down is up.  Facts and reality do not exist.  Limbaugh spouted his latest, but in my opinion crudest, misogynistic crap without getting anything but Sandra Fluke's name correct. The conservative movement's obsession with sex and hatred of strong women would probably take a book or college thesis to even begin to understand.  Fluke testified in front of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) because Darrell Issa (R-CA) decided she was "not qualified" to testify in front his full Judiciary committee with all those men.  Ms. Fluke, a graduate student at Georgetown University's prestigious law school"s, testimony had absolutely nothing to do with her own need for birth control nor anything to do with her own sexual prolictivities (although, that would not change my disgust with Limbaugh).  Her testimony was based on experiences she had personally witnessed when her friends were in need of birth control solely for medical reasons, and the terrible repercussions which ensued when they were denied coverage.  For Sandra Flukes full testimony see here   Rush Limbaugh explained he got this misinformation from a right wing blog.  Which [being erroneous] is more common than uncommon to right wing blogs.  Personally, I believe they just make shit up.  Second did Limbaugh bother to have anyone check (most right wing media skip the whole fact check thing) her testimony (see David Brock's Blinded by the Right and for laughs but truth Al Frank's Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot)  It took me two seconds to find her testimony on Google.  Furthermore, Limbaugh didn't even understand how the pill works.  Most likely he just assumed it works like his Viagra and unless Limbaugh shoots blanks since he's been married 4 times and had no children, someone's been using birth control.  His ignorance would be hillarious if he wasn't attempting so vicously to hurt an innocent woman using that same first amendment Rush Limbaugh uses everyday to spread his lies and hate.

The GOP Debates Showed America the Truth about Republicans

Is anyone who thinks (meaning liberals) really surprised by the catastrophe that is the GOP primary race for president.  In congressional races not nearly as much attention is paid.  And most people hardly know who there Governor or Senators currently is much less who's running in those election.  But when those candidates stood on those stages for 20 loooooong debates, we all got to know what the Republican party represents.  Those creatures on stage were not some sort of anomaly.  They were exactly what the party sounds like.  Even their conservative crowds helped America learn what the GOP really thinks like.  And the only answer, those not already a member of their tribe, could conceivably garner from the whole mess was:  Republicans are mean.  Republicans are liars.  Republicans love killing.  Republicans will do anything for a buck (including destroy the earth).  Republicans are not Christian, Muslim, Jewish nor any other religion (which most I suspect do) which cares for their fellow man.  Americans  learned a great deal from all those debates and although we may not have learned a particular candidates stand on the issues.   In the end what we did feel, I feel is much more valuable.

Video: Just Another Day of Lying on "The Fox News Show"

Once again "The Fox News Show" feeds it's extremely gullible audience a giant plate of crap garnished with it's paid "experts" and spoon fed to the fools by one of the biggest dummies ever on teevee land (the rest of the teevee dummies can also be seen on "The Fox News Show".  As the anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act nears (PPAHCA), the dummies will make sure you haven't forgotten how "evil" and unAmerican this whole "Obamacare" is.  "The Fox News Show" threw facts out the door a long time ago.  Watch:

Are You Kidding "Newt Gringrich"????

Come on people.  The eighties are over.  Have we learned nothing in thirty years? Or are you unable to stop banging your head against the wall and expecting a different result?  Perhaps you should start a Newt Gingrich Anonymous 12 step program? Perhaps you want to live in a third world country because you are part of the haves and would like it    Otherwise if you are part of the 99.99999%of the rest of us how you can't possibly fall for one of the most conniving men ever in politics.
Unless you weren't political aware yet, anything coning out of Newts mouth has been around since the Willie Horton adds.

Video: Santorum Claims Prenatel Care Leads to More Abortions

This interview of Rick Santorum by Bob Sheiffer is so full of misinformation and "lies" I won't even name them all.. They are that obvious.  Santorum claims 90% of fetus found to carry Downs Syndrome are aborted (lie).  I only wonder why Mr. Scheiffer didn't question his sources.  Didn't Sarah Palin have amnio?  I have at least 4 friends who after having amnio decided to continue their pregnancy and have the baby.   Furthermore, I must  address the reasons 3rd trimester abortions are performed.  They are extremely rare and are only done when the fetus meets very strict critiria.  Many are fetus who will die an extremely painful death shortly after being born, some are born with no brain stem, some endanger both the mother and the fetus's life if born. These are just many of the horrible circumstances women confront when having to make this difficult decision.  I wonder if Mr. Santorum would have allowed his wife and mother of his other 5 children to die if forced to make such a horrible choice?

Video: Dana Loesch Believes Woman Don't Care Who or What Someone Sticks in our Bodies

 I guess Ms. Loesch believes ANYBODY can stick ANYTHING inside our bodies and we're happy=I guess she believes that's all we want.  I've had this procedure and it does feel like being raped.  I have never forgotten it.

VIDEO: JON STEWART CALLS OUT MANY FOX LIES

These examples of "The Fox News Show" lies continue and Fox has never offered a retractions.  These lies come straight from right wing web sights or their "news sources".  For further insight,  I would suggest reading David Brocks Blinded by the Right".  David Brock is a former insider who now runs MediaMatters.org.  Brock was not just "an insider" but was deeply involved with the right wing- even so far as writing a scathing and misleading book on Anita Hill.  He as since apologized for failing to even research her story ( something the right wing does not do or purposely leaves out).  Although originally kept at arms length, he has proven himself "enlightened" and to be trusted.  My whole point is how, after leaving the right wing, Brock was astonished at having fact checkers at non right wing publications.  According to David Brock the Right wing including such "reputable" publications as "The National Review' do not rely on fact checking but use such disreputable sources such as "The Drudge Report" (although do on occasion use fact checking in order to remain in good standing as a conservative media outlet.
I DARE FOX TO PROVIDE FACT CHECKERS
Finally in case you missed or have forgotten Jon Stewart's show displaying all the lies which have appeared on "The Fox News Show":

Will Hatred of Obama Win Over Not So Motivated Romney Supporters?

The real question in the election of 2012 will be whether the percentage of "anybody but Obama" voters are motivated by their visceral hatred of the President to vote for candidates they may find less than ideal.  Most of these type of voters can't even give you a realistic reason for their hatred of President Obama but will that hatred propel them to vote for candidates they must hold their noses to vote for?  Months have been spent by Republican primary voters courting the Bachmans, Cains, Gingrichs, even falling for the tease of Donald Trump rather than admitting they had only one alternative to Obama: Willard Mitt Romney.  The fact that the GOP voters would even consider the others should tell you the state of the Republican voter.  They have been fed a steady diet of disinformation from all conservative media sources, especially "The Fox News Show" but also online propaganda that feeds their hatred for anything Obama, including his family.  And of course they email these lies to everyone they know or have met ( I've gotten a few).  So I guess the question is: Will hatred win the day?
FOR MORE LIKE THIS:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/us/politics/iowa-caucus-voters-lack-enthusiasm.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

2012 May Be the Year We Save the American Middle Class (or not))

I stumbled across this excellent, concise article and knew I couldn't have written what's at stake in 2012 any better. I think a great deal about the precarious situation, three decades of conservatism and dismantling of the once great middle class that enabled this country to remain the envy of the world, have changed it. Please read this and pass it on to everyone you care about and even those you don't. They probably need it even more, although I know how hard it is to get some people's head out of their ass to turn off "the Fox News Show and admit the truth.
Presidential campaign needs to get real on salvaging middle class

The GOP is Just a Bunch of Angry Losers Who Should Never Again Be Put in Power

I haven't written in a long time due to personal reasons but I have been watching the GOP circus clowns as much as I can stomach.  These people running for president as Republicans have finally shown America what they have always been about.  Even the GOP audiences join in to define what the Republican party is now comprised of.  The republican party, the tea party, what ever you want to call it is nothing but a bunch of angry white voters who have never been good losers. It's in their nature. Yes, the fact President Obama is black has only added fuel to their fire but they would never accept any Democratic victory.  Does anyone truly believe George W. Bush would have bowed out graciously like Al Gore did in 2000?  My God it would have probably started another civil war.  The clowns at these GOP debates have all tried to outdo each other in cruelty and bigotry.  From taking away health care reform to building the biggest, deadliest fences to protect us from all those terrible "illegal aliens" and letting people die because they have no health insurance, all these people want is an America that never existed for the vast majority of us. They have already succeeded in breaking down the middle class that built this country and pinned the blame on "others".  This country thrived because of "The New Deal" for almost 4 decades.  Should we be holding on to some pipe dream of suddenly becoming part of that 1% or should we would be investing in our infrastructure, our schools, and the earth our children and grandchildren will someday inherit. Those clowns on stage at the Republican debates offer no solutions.  They all want exactly what we voted against in 2008: a return to the same economic policies which failed miserably for 99% of us and the deregulation of the  markets which led to a financial meltdown almost as big as the great depression.  President Obama has been extremely effective when he doesn't have to deal with congress, such as in foreign affairs.   Imagine what he could do without Republicans and Conservative Democrats fighting him tooth and nail at every step.  Just imagine.