Sunday, May 5, 2013

Rush Limbaugh: Don’t blame me for WABC’s declining ad sales (UPDATED)

Read more: NYDailyNews.com  "The roots of this simmering dispute go back to February, 2012, when Limbaugh called law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” after she pressed D.C. lawmakers to mandate insurance coverage of birth control.
"Media Matters and other progressive groups called for advertisers to drop Limbaugh’s show — and several hundred, including Sears, Geico, John Deere, Netflix, Capitol One and the New York Lottery, did, the group said.
"Limbaugh has said the departees were replaced, and a source close to the show said revenue was “very minimally impacted in the short term.”
....
"Talk radio has suffered from a serious ad slump since the recession began in 2008. But WABC has opened a substantial lead in recent years over its primary news/talk rival in New York, WOR. In the latest Arbitron ratings, WABC averaged 2.8% of the audience to 1.2% for WOR.
....
"If Limbaugh leaves Cumulus, which now carries him on 40 stations in 36 markets, the source at his show confirms he would be looking for other stations in those markets."

UPDATE:Talk radio turmoil  "While liberal media enjoy the spectacle of intramural conflict in the talk radio biz, this appears to be nothing more than a hardball negotiation tactic, with both sides keeping their options open. Fans of Rush and of talk radio need not worry."

The feckless elimination of America's stabilizing influence in the world.

Someone said "so we can't be the world's cop, but what if there is a world criminal?"
Political Cartoons by Chip Bok
By Elliott Abrams;  Of Presidents and Bluffing  "Today's New York Times carries a story about the President's "red line" on the Syrian use of chemical weapons: how that line appeared and how it disappeared.
"There are many aspects to this story, but most appear in these brief paragraphs:
Mr. Obama’s advisers also raised legal issues. “How can we attack another country unless it’s in self-defense and with no Security Council resolution?” another official said, referring to United Nations authorization. “If he drops sarin on his own people, what’s that got to do with us?”
But they concluded that drawing a firm line might deter Mr. Assad. In addition to secret messages relayed through Russia, Iran and other governments, they decided that the president would publicly address the matter.
"First, the humanitarian issue: "If he drops sarin on his own people, what's that got to do with us?” said one adviser about the possibility of such an atrocity. How soon they forget. According to the Times that line was uttered last August, not quite four months after Mr. Obama established his "Atrocities Prevention Board." In a speech on April 23, 2012 he said this at the Holocaust Museum:
And finally, "never again" is a challenge to nations.  It’s a bitter truth -- too often, the world has failed to prevent the killing of innocents on a massive scale.  And we are haunted by the atrocities that we did not stop and the lives we did not save.  Read more...
 Political Cartoons
By William Kristol;   Pathetic   "The Obama administration’s Syria policy is bad enough, and this State Department press release from this morning is just pathetic:"....

"If the government of the United States is unwilling to do anything but present to the world the sorry spectacle of justice without a sword or justice unwilling to use the sword, surely it would be better to say nothing. If the Obama administration is, as Churchill put it in November 1936, "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent," then it should have the decency to keep silent rather than engage in such pitiable and contemptible posturing."

Also by Mr. Kristol; Losing the Game   "We’re unfortunately approaching a state where “our friendship is not valued, and our enmity is not feared.” That would be disastrous for us, and for the world. An American president has no more important job than to check, and then reverse, the momentum toward such an outcome." 
That will not be said about Israel. See this next post:
Report: Israel Strikes Syria; 'At Least Some...Take Red Lines Seriously'
"Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be on their way to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said."..
" "If fired from southern Lebanon they can reach Tel Aviv and even (the southern city of) Beersheba." He said the rockets are much five times more accurate than the scud missiles that Hezbollah has fired in the past. "It is a game changer because they are a threat to Israel's infrastructure and military installations," he said."
US Peace activists are painting posters as we speak.

BENGHAZI: Names of ‘whistle-blower’ witnesses revealed

Fox News  via Drudge: "Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be three career State Department officials: Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for Operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the regional security officer in Libya, the top security officer in the country in the months leading up to the attacks."
....
" "For me the Taliban is on the inside of the [State Department] building," Nordstrom testified, angry over inadequate staffing at a time when the threat environment in Benghazi was deteriorating,"...