Tag Archives: limbaugh

Utah sobers up from climate denial

by Lashawnda33V Posted on May 18, 2018

The flamboyantly conservative state of Utah — home to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, an all-Republican government, and the Utah Jazz — now officially recognizes climate change, thanks to a bunch of kids.

Seven high-school students stood behind the desk of Gov. Gary Herbert this week as he signed the climate change resolution they’d championed. The resolution acknowledges the existence of climate change, calls for cutting carbon emissions, and states that ratcheting down carbon need not “constrain the economy nor its global competitiveness.”

The students started their push for this legislation back in 2010, after Utah lawmakers passed a resolution calling on the federal government to stop efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions until there was more evidence that climate change was a thing.

The students then found an ally, Rebecca Edwards, a Republican representative in the state House, who introduced their resolution. After two years of lobbying, it passed by a wide margin.

Grist has been writing about Republicans who want to act on climate change for years now. The problem has been that members of the eco-right often get voted out of office if they take too strong a stand. Conservative media outlets have long argued that climate action is a liberal plot to expand big government, and now that idea is baked into the orthodoxy of the Republican base. But the Republican party is changing. It’s not enough for lawmakers to listen to aging Rush Limbaugh “dittoheads.” They also have to consider their younger constituents, who are twice as likely to accept that humans are causing climate change as Republican boomers.

Millennial Republicans aren’t exactly hardcore climate hawks, though: just 36 percent think that climate change is mostly our fault, while 59 percent say it’s having an effect on the United States, according to a Pew poll.

The Utah resolution matches that sentiment. It doesn’t single out humans as culprits and emphasizes the potential for competitive markets and innovation to curb emissions. That’s not perfect, but it’s pretty damn (excuse me, Utah) pretty darn good for a start.

Originally posted here – 

Utah sobers up from climate denial

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Harry Reid Exposes the Left’s Dirty Little Secret

by GabrielPorterfie Posted on December 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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Jason Zengerle profiles Sen. Harry Reid:

“As my staff will tell you,” Reid said to me when we spoke the next day, “I’ve done a number of things because no one else will do it. I’ve done stuff no one else will do.” I expected him to give an ­example of a successful parliamentary maneuver or perhaps a brave political endorsement, but instead he mentioned one of the most disreputable episodes of his long career, when, during the 2012 presidential campaign, he falsely accused Mitt Romney of not having paid his taxes. (Even though the facts were wrong, the accusation spurred Romney to release his tax returns, which showed he had only paid 14.1 percent.) “I tried to get everybody to do that. I didn’t want to do that,” Reid said. “I didn’t have anything against him personally. He’s a fellow Mormon, nice guy. I went to everybody. But no one would do it. So I did it.”

Brendan Nyhan comments:

Nyhan is right, but my initial reaction to this anecdote was quite different: Reid tried and tried to get someone else to do this, but no one would.

Can you imagine a similar situation on the right? Sean Hannity would have practically paid for the privilege. Rush Limbaugh would have happily spent an entire show on it. The Wall Street Journal edit page would have been all over it. Newt Gingrich would have pitched in. At least 20 or 30 members of the House would have been happy to do it. I bet Jim Inhofe would have given a speech in the well of the Senate in a heartbeat. Half a dozen Super PACs would have rushed to buy air time.

But among liberals, zilch. No one would do something like this. That’s pretty amazing.

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Harry Reid Exposes the Left’s Dirty Little Secret

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Come On, Let’s Give the Conservative Media Cocoon Some Credit

by TeodoroI91 Posted on August 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Conservative media is starting to come under attack from conservatives. Yesterday Rush Limbaugh responded to a listener who was mad at him for not warning that Donald Trump was unreliable on the subject of immigration. In particular, he was mad about Trump’s waffling on whether he would deport all 11 million illegal immigrants:

Rush Limbaugh: Yeah, well I guess the difference is—well not the difference, I guess the thing is, this is gonna enrage you. You know, I could choose a path here to try to mollify you, but I never took him seriously on this!….

Rick: This is why Trump is going to get annihilated. Because nobody called him out early on about his absurd policies.

Rush Limbaugh: Yes they did! For crying out loud, 15 candidates called him out….

Rick: Except unfortunately the number one place where Republican primary voters get their news.

Rush Limbaugh: Oh no, it’s on me and we’re out of time––

Rick: Which is Fox.

So Limbaugh never took Trump seriously on one of his key immigration policies, but never bothered to tell his listeners this. And Fox News played the fool too. David French has more on that:

It’s hard to overstate the power of Fox News for those seeking a career in the conservative movement. I’ve seen the most accomplished of lawyers suddenly become “somebody” only after they regularly appear on Fox….The result is clear: Conservatives gain fame, power, and influence mainly by talking to each other.

….Fox News went on the air in October 1996. Since that time, the GOP has won the popular vote for president exactly once: in 2004, by a whopping 2.4 percent. If Hillary Clinton wins in November, as appears likely, the GOP will have lost the popular vote in five of the six presidential elections since Fox broke the liberal media monopoly.

….Prior to 1996, a politician could truly succeed only by going to the American people through the media outlets they actually watched, which encouraged communication that persuaded those who weren’t true believers….The conservative movement is a victim of Fox’s success….Appearing on Fox can create an alluring but illusory fame, and in seeking it above all else, some of our best minds inadvertently limit their own influence. I don’t resent Fox’s existence, but I lament its effect on our movement. It’s time to leave the cocoon.

All this is true. And yet, ever since the Limbaugh/Gingrich/Ailes revolution of the 90s, conservatives have been immensely successful at literally every level of government other than the presidency. If their cocoon gets some of the blame for foisting Trump on the American public—and it does—it also gets some of the credit for the GOP’s spectacular success at the state and congressional level:

The Reagan Revolution didn’t really have much effect on Republican control of Congress and the states. There were ups and downs, but the overall trend was flat. The Limbaugh/Gingrich/Ailes revolution was quite different. Republican control skyrocketed, and stayed high. In 2010 it got even higher. Conservative media deserves some of the credit for that.

Now, unfortunately for Republicans, the real driver of all this was the conversion of the South from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican. This meant that in order to succeed, the LGA Revolution had to be based largely on appealing to the racial resentments of Southern whites. The three principals were all happy to do this, and it worked a treat. It’s still working, too, everywhere except the presidency, where the growth of the non-white population has simply been too big an obstacle to overcome.

So give LGA some credit. They saw the brass ring, and they didn’t really care much if they had to sell their souls to get it. But Donald Trump has brought their fundamental problem into sharp focus: How do you harness white racial resentment effectively enough to keep control of Congress and the states, while appearing racially moderate enough to win the presidency? It’s a hell of a pretty pickle, isn’t it?

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Come On, Let’s Give the Conservative Media Cocoon Some Credit

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Marco Rubio Uses Cecil the Lion to Shame Planned Parenthood Supporters

by SOYTerri5434 Posted on July 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Today, Marco Rubio couldn’t resist attempting to conflate two recent controversies—an American dentist’s admission he killed Cecil the lion and a sting operation currently targeting Planned Parenthood—for the following take:

The tweet, aside from demonstrating a clear lack of grammar skills, mirrors similar statements from the likes of Rush Limbaugh asserting the same blend of crazy. Rubio should probably lay off of Twitter and get back to actually doing his job.

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Marco Rubio Uses Cecil the Lion to Shame Planned Parenthood Supporters

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Nuns’ Group Responds After Rush Limbaugh Says Pope Spouts "Pure Marxism"

by TrinidadOctoman Posted on December 4, 2013

Mother Jones

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In late November, when Pope Francis promised to remake the Catholic Church as a decentralized institution that would agitate against the economic injustices of capitalism, Rush Limbaugh was quick with an explanation: “Somebody has either written this for him or gotten to him.”

Limbaugh’s remarks—in which he also assailed the Pope’s agenda as being “pure Marxism”—have drawn the ire of many Catholics, and one group, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, is already calling for the radio host to apologize.

On Wednesday, Donna Quinn, who coordinates the National Coalition of American Nuns, a liberal activist group of several thousand nuns, joined the Catholics denouncing Limbaugh’s comments.

“Men and women who are educated and those who have street smarts see right thorough those kind of statements,” she says. (Quinn, who is well-known for her support of gay marriage and reproductive rights, notes that she is a big supporter of Sandra Fluke, the women’s rights activist who gained national notoriety when Limbaugh called her a “slut” and “prostitute” on his program.)

Quinn adds that although she does not count herself among those “smitten” with Pope Francis—”enough of the words,” she says, “we want to see some action”—she is troubled by Limbaugh’s callousness toward the people about whom Pope Francis was speaking. “In these dire times…those are the people that it would behoove Rush to take a look at. To see what’s best, not for his program or for his rowdy statements, but rather for the people of God.”

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Nuns’ Group Responds After Rush Limbaugh Says Pope Spouts "Pure Marxism"

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