BlatherWatch

Rush Stays Classy--UPDATED

Today, Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a "slut."

(image: Rush defends his shortcomings)

Ms. Fluke is the woman who last week was denied the right to speak at a controversial contraception hearing before the House Oversight committee. Ms. Fluke, a student at Georgetown University, was supposed to testify in support of birth control at the hearing, but Chairperson Rep. Darryl Issa refused to allow her testimony, letting only men harrumph about President Obama's contraception policy. When she was finally allowed to speak at another hearing, that had very low attendance, she explained what most women know--The Pill is also used for medical conditions such as preventing the growth of cysts, treating menstrual cramps and to even out hormone levels.

Rush "babe-magnet" Limbaugh decided that since she knows so much about contraception, it could only mean one thing.

Ms. Fluke is obviously a SLUT.

"Can you imagine if you were her parents how proud...you would be?" he said. "Your daughter ... testifies she's having so much sex she can't afford her own birth control pills and she wants President Obama to provide them, or the Pope."

He continued:

"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."

Limbaugh then said, "ok, so she's not a slut. She's round-heeled."

"Round-heeled" is an old fashioned term for promiscuity.

You would think that the thrice-married radio host, who was busted at Palm Beach International Airport for possession of 29 Viagra pills with another man's name on the bottle, would be a little less judgemental about the sex lives of others.

UPDATE: Today Rush claimed that if all these sex-crazed women who are demanding birth control expect the "Government to pay for it," men were going to start demanding " a little something in return."  He proposed that Ms. Fluke post a video on the Internet that shows her having sex.

Limbaugh has been married 4 times and he has no children. Unless he shoots blanks, we must assume--make that we fervently hope--that his wives all used birth control. Unless each of them paid for that birth control out of their own pockets, as Rush insists Fluke should do, did he just call his wives sluts?

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P Eric Slocum

From the KOMO facebook page:

It is with great sadness that we’ve learned of the death of Eric Slocum, former KOMO 4 anchor/reporter and former KOMO Newsradio anchor. 

Eric was a part of the KOMO-TV news team for 10 years and spent another six behind a KOMO Newsradio microphone. He left KOMO Newsradio in 2008 to write a memoir and concentrate on the poems that he so loved. In 1996, Eric wrote a moving book of poems called “New Words”, which was published with Fisher and Childrens’ Hospital to help raise money for childrens’ health care.

Goodbye (In the end)

I've been to Herald Square
and Jerusalem --The River Jordan --
Sea of Galilee --
Golgatha.

I've walked on Penny Lane.

I touched the Hollywood Sign.

so many other journeys.
—But now it's time to rest—
—been a busy day—

Posted by Dan-Eric Slocum at 10:09a, the day he died.

We do not know yet about any services or remembrances. We’ll keep everyone posted.

RR

BlatherWatch to rick santorum

BlatherWatch will caucus for the pugnacious, glib, ass-o-holic, orthodox religionist, Rick Santorum, Saturday, March 3. 

The PA Senator has suggested (among many other things) that legalizing gay sex could/would lead to recognition of “man on child” and “man on dog” relationships, and would “undermine the fabric of our society.”

Despite his stand against higher education, and a woman's right to choose anything that has to do with her reproductive parts, we believe him to be the best candidate to represent the ruling tea party wing of the GOP and face President Obama in the fall.

Despite embarrassing literal translations of his name that would disqualify any other candidate, we think Rick Santorum would be the funnest to watch being trounced by the President.

Wanna join us helping Rick get the nod from Washington state? click here to find your caucus location. Be a Republican for a day, walk a mile in their Guccis, help save America.

The circus continues!

This GOP devastation really has one author--Newt Gingrich.  He was the architect of the filthy politics that turned the Congress into the mess we have today.  It's nice to see that good old mudslinging claimed Newt this year as its permanent poster-child.  After this he won't be able to run for cover, let alone for any office.

And now, with the cat-fighting between Romney and Santorum, the process is complete.  The GOP in infected all the way down.  Whoever wins this contest in Michigan will be hated and reviled by at least one third of the country's Republicans.  Who could ask for more?  R.R.

The entertainment value of small-town politics

by Rachelle R.

In what is left of local radio, political coverage is mostly a rehashing of what can be found on other major news outlets. Lost in the sea of big city and national politics are the soap-opera-like stories of the local variety in the small towns and hamlets throughout Washington. Often, there are melodramatic and highly personal shennanigans that would fit right into an episode of "Reno-911."

This past November a couple of small towns saw their mayors lose close contests to people who otherwise would not list politics as something in which to get involved. Both winners were moved to run based on their intense dislike of the sitting mayor or other city officials.

In the 2.5 sq. mile town of Pacific, Mayor Rich Hildreth lost his 3rd race for relection. Hildreth came under scrutiny when he refused to follow up on the arrest of his police chief who had been stopped on suspected drunk driving. But the issue that really upset the tiny electorate was the number of times Mayor Rich attended Emergency Management conventions around the country. Some felt he was building a resume and getting free training for a career after he left office, a charge Hildreth denies. He was defeated by a write-in candidate, 80-something Cy Sun, who was probably as surprised at his win as Mayor Rich was. Hildreth continues to voice his opinion on his blog.

Maybe the most entertaining story of all is in the town of Tenino, south-east of Olympia. Eric Strawn, 35, is heavily tatooed and his usual uniform is jeans and a Bob Marley t-shirt. He occasionally smokes pot from a prescription and wears his hair in a ponytail.  He has a police record of misdemenors that include his pot smoking and taking a car radio from his uncle's car detailing shop.

The AP reports, "Strawn, a Tenino native who never finished high school and works at a beef-slaughtering plant ('People ask me, "Oh, you kill cows?" I say, 'I just cut their heads off.' It's a job that has to be done.') readily admitted to having no political experience."

On the first day of work, Strawn arrived at City Hall to find that one part of the building had been gated and locked by the City Clerk to prevent his entry. Behind those locks were court records, some with his name on them. The reason for preventing access to these records? The former mayor, Ken Jones said, "You figure it out for yourself."  Strawn fired the clerk, took down the gates, and then ordered some simple padlocks for the file cabinets, to ease fears he might remove records involving him or his friends. Later, a city council member criticized his written tribute to a Tenino military veteran as being full of grammatical errors. Rumors raced through city goverment that he would fire all of them when he took office, so the council immediately passed an ordinance that would take that power away from him. Council members later acknowledged the ordinance was unenforceable because state law gives the mayor such powers.

The people of Tenino appear to be willing to give their new mayor a chance. The previous administration saddled the town with millions in debt to pay for a sewer system. It had "lost touch with the townspeople" according to many residents. 

The AP says, "The new mayor has plans for change in the city, such as getting a grant for putting in a bike, skateboarding and basketball area in the city's park and asking the local bank to sponsor the maintenance on the city's historic quarry pool."

Smoke 'em if you've got 'em, and stay tuned!

Old Seattle Radio Saturday: view from the KOMO radio tower, 1948

Man wearing hardhat on KOMO radio tower, Seattle, 1948.

(posted without permission from, but with eternal admiration of, the Museum of History & Industry, Seattle)

Huckabee to Go After Rushbo

By Geov Parrish. KEXP, Eat the State

In the most direct challenge to the undisputed King of Talk Radio in a long time, last week, Cumulus Media - which operates radio stations in 68 market announced last week that it had signed a deal to syndicate a new show, hosted by Gov. Mike Huckabee, that would run in the 9 AM-noon (Pacific time) national slot long owned by Rush Limbaugh.

Huckabee, the former preacher and Arkansas governor who ran for president in 2008 and thought about it for this year, is a natural for this gig. He worked in radio as a youth and leveraged his presidential run into a cushy weekend sinecure with Fox News. He's also been syndicating a three-minute daily radio commentary, The Huckabee Report, heard locally three times a day on Christian outlet KCIS (630 AM) in Edmonds. Huckabee has said he will continue the Fox show.

What does this mean for talk radio? Limbaugh's syndicator, Premiere, is owned by Clear Channel Communications, a direct competitor of Cumulus, and Cumulus Media happens to own a number of Limbaugh's biggest market affiliates. It'll be fascinating to see if Cumulus has the stones to move or even replace the established (but much more expensive) Limbaugh show in those markets. 

In other markets, Cumulus is likely to have to settle for secondary conservative talk stations. But with the demise of KVI, Seattle doesn't have any of those except for Christian stations (like KCIS) with relatively miniscule audiences and budgets. Cumulus is aiming bigger than that. The closest Cumulus cluster is in Eugene, so it's not immediately clear whether any other Western Washington stations will pick up the Huckabee show ahead of its April 2 launch date. KGMI (790 AM) in Bellingham is the only other area station that airs the current three-minute Huckabee vignettes - but it also runs Rush. You can see the problem.

What does this mean for Huckabee? He's being coy about any political future: ìIf, a few years down the road, I see an opening, I dont rule it out, but Iím not plotting a political return either. (Translation: "This is a great way to keep my name out there, and we'll see if it works.")

What does it mean for listeners? Cumulus says Huckabee's show will be less ideological than Limbaugh's, with more cultural guests. But then, given that Huckabee's national following has been built largely on his evangelical cred in the culture wars, that may be picking nits: the culture wars are plenty political, and ripe fodder for whipping up the fury of a certain kind of talk radio listener.

Chances are most Limbaugh listeners aren't going to give Rush up - not after 20 years - but on the days when The Flatulent One is particularly drug-addled, or during those interminable commercial breaks, Huckabee will likely offer a fine second choice for those listeners. And there's still a lot of money to be made in that.

The question for Seattle: is there enough money in it that a station like Fisher's KOMO or KVI, or even Bonneville's KIRO-FM, would be willing to break format to add Huckabee's new show? Or would Bonneville, which now owns the sole conservative talk station in town, KTTH - a station built around the Limbaugh show - delay Huckabee and find another time slot for him on The Truth?

Radio Gnus

Seattle – Fisher’s news/talk KOMO-AM/FM is #1, 4.7-4.2-6.0. And that Bonneville’s rival news/talk KIRO-FM is on its tail, 5.7-4.6-5.9. So what happened to Holiday-book champion all-Christmas “Warm”? That’s Sandusky’s soft AC KRWM, and it settled from a 12.0 to a 5.5, ranking third. Then you encounter another high-flying public radio news/talker – the University of Washington’s KUOW, in fourth place (4.5-4.2-5.2). The rest of the talk field didn’t do so well. Bonneville’s talk “Truth” KTTH, the home of Rush Limbaugh, has moved 1.6-1.3-1.4. Fisher’s new “Smart Talk” KVI sank from a 0.3 to a 0.1.

Let me repeat that.

KVI sank from a 0.3 to a 0.1.   Apparently Sunrise Seattle isn't impressing too many people. From the website: 

Elisa Jaffe and Mark Christopher and staff members Jennifer Austin, Brittney Perrault, and Marina Rockinger set a silly world record for "most people saying 'Sunrise Seattle' for 20 seconds while holding their tongues."

Riveting radio, no doubt.

(Hat tip to Tom Taylor for the ratings statistics.)

(left-Señor Wences)  In other news, Brian Suits is out at KOGO in San Diego over a scheduling dispute. From his Facebook page:  "So, just to be clear, KOGO and I agreed that I could do the Noon-2 (eventually 3) PM show from Seattle. When a change to 3-6pm was floated, we couldn't agree on what it would take to move to San Diego. The good news is, Bean from KROQ (and fellow Seattleite) is kicking my ass to do a daily podcast and occasional live shows in LA and The OC. So stay tuned."

Ole!

by Rachelle, Star Reporter

The blood letting continues at KGO

Venerable but underutilized progressive talker Peter B. Collins, along with Stacey Taylor, are among the latest causalities as Cumulus' winter march into San Francisco radio continues with the Prague Spring.

 Collins and Taylor, both weekend or fill-in hosts, none the less are well respected Bay Area talkers, with Collins having his own syndication at the tail end of the Air America experiment, and who now hosts his own show available via podcast subscription.   Meanwhile, John Rothmann and Gill Gross have both found part time gigs at KKSF 910 .

One has to wonder how a 50,000 watt institution, especially with its huge AM footprint at night, could be wasted on what some refer as "KCBS lite" with its attempt to copy CBS'  all news, all the time format.

                                                                                ~~ By Walter Chronic

 

Update-- according to Stacy's FB page,

"Apparently got a reprieve of sorts. KGO Sunday morning midnight-3AM, and Sunday night 10p-1a. Hope the late night freaks are out and listening."

A Government Small Enough to Enter a Woman's WHAT???

 

In its continuing War on Women, the GOP has now gone where no political party has gone before:

The Hoo. Vagina. Down There.

The Virginia State Legislature wants to pass an anti-abortion bill that, in part, would require a woman to undergo an internal ultrasound. They hope that faced with the scanned picture, the woman would then make the decision not to have the abortion.

Naturally, women across the country are outraged at this proposed invasion of their bodies and privacy.  Well, most women. Tea party doyenne Dana Loesch's opinion is that once a women loses her virginity, she gives up the right to determine what should penetrate her vagina for the rest of her life.

Really?

Today there was a silent protest on the grounds of the Capitol as legislators were forced to look into the eyes of women and men, arms linked, as they walked to their offices. It was enough to delay the vote in the Senate, the passage of which would have sent the bill to the Governor's office for his signature. The House has already passed the bill. Even Governor McDonnell's spokesperson said today that it wasn't a foregone conclusion that he would sign such a bill.

The latest poll showed that the general populace is NOT in agreement: 55% oppose the legislation and only 38% are for it. Whether or not one thinks abortion is acceptable as law, this crazy-ass decision goes too far, and the polls support that assertion.

Ladies, be on alert!  The same folks who believe that "masturbation equates murder" think your Tunnel of Love is everyone's business but your own.

by Rachelle Robbinson, guest contributor