Is it Time to Expand the #StopRush Campaign to #CNN?

 For the past couple weeks, I’ve been highlighting the misogyny and outright disgusting behavior of a cabal of right-wingers, with Oink Limbaugh serving as the Misogynist-in-Chief.  (See below for a full list of posts.)

Limbaugh’s sexist rant against Sandra Fluke caused a social media firestorm, and that firestorm has yielded results. More than 150 advertiser have fled from Limbaugh like rats fleeing a sinking ship, forcing Limbaugh’s show to air free PSAs and, in some cases, to air nothing at all.  That’s right: radio silence during Limbaugh’s show.  It’s never happened before.

The StopRush campaign has done so much damage to Limbaugh that his advertising network, Premiere Networks made the unprecedented and “unusual” move of suspending its ad buys for two weeks. The claimed reason is branding something-or-other and makes absolutely no sense; I suspect that the Limbaugh crew expects that in two weeks, liberals will have moved on to a new issue and forgotten all about Limbaugh.

Sorry, that’s not going to happen.  Not this time. We’re not going to let that happen.

While we must keep up the pressure on Limbaugh’s local and national advertisers, and I think it might be time to take a look at the sort of hate speech that CNN — the purported “place for news” — supports by continuing to feature Breitbart’s hate-apprentice and Erik Erickson’s BFF, Dana Loesch.

Yesterday, Dana Loesch went the way of Michelle “Granite Countertops” Malkin and revealed information that Loesch dug up during her own countertops inspection of Sandra Fluke’s boyfriend.  Apparently, Ms. Fluke’s boyfriend is the son of an “entrenched Democrat” (whatever the hell that means) and should pay for Ms. Fluke’s contraception.

I generally do not pay attention to anything Loesch does because she makes no valuable contribution to the political discourse.  Nevertheless, upon the suggestion of commenter AJ on yesterday’s post, I did a little digging around the wasteland that is Big Journalism, turns out that Dana Loesch is more of a pernicious purveyor of falsehoods, mistruths, and lies than I thought.  Here’s a taste of what she had to say about Ms. Fluke:

More have admonished Limbaugh’s description of Sandra Fluke than admonished a 30 year-old woman embarrassing herself before congress by testifying that she simply cannot stop getting it on and her inability to control her urges constitutes infringing upon everyone else for a bailout.

~snip~

I’ve not heard a single Republican politician stand up to the media narrative on this. Instead of projecting surrogate modesty towards Fluke, they project it towards Limbaugh, who is calling the truth for what it is. Fluke, a 30 year-old (presented as a 23 year-old college coed by the media) women’s activist/professional student, is likely not having monogamous sex with the same man approximately 2.74 times a day, every day, for three straight years (in order to satisfy the calculations about which she felt confident enough to present during a congressional testimony). If she is, kudos! But promiscuity is not the hallmark of a virtuous woman. Is it Limbaugh’s fault for pointing it out or Fluke’s fault for the behavior? It’s a rhetorical question and the answer proved Limbaugh’s entire point.

The real war on women is being perpetuated upon us by our own sex; women who seek to place us under the control of a pimp-daddy government by demanding it cover all our needs, in exchange for control, or force private entities to do so in its stead.

It gets worse.

On her radio show, CNN contributor Dana Loesch ridiculed college-aged women for wanting access to contraceptives, saying, “She’s doing it more than she’s studying in law school. Is that why our — is that why law sucks lately? Is that why we’re having such a problem in our courts?” Loesch went on to say: “They act like they’re nymphos. That’s what they act like.”

Really.

Why is this woman on CNN? CNN cannot possibly be cool with one of their “political analysts” calling every single college-aged woman who wants access to contraceptives a “slut.” There are a lot of CNN viewers who won’t be pleased when they find out that they, their daughters, sisters, aunts, and nieces are “sluts” according to a paid CNN contributor — and a woman, no less.

The sort of fact-free vitriol which Loesch spews like so much fecal sludge from a broken sewer pipe has no place in our political discourse, much less on a global network that touts itself as a “News Network.” News contains facts. Nothing about anything Loesch said about Ms. Fluke  bears any resemblance to fact.  Loesch and her ilk either didn’t bother to read Fluke’s testimony or are vicious liars (or both.)

Ms. Fluke’s testimony was not about her sex life.  It wasn’t about not being able to afford contraception.  Ms. Fluke relayed a story about a friend who required contraception as medical treatment for ovarian cysts, and in so doing stood up for the millions of women who use contraception or have used contraception, whether for medical reasons or otherwise.***

Loesch’s slanderous statements about Ms. Fluke should disqualify her from any sort of paid position on CNN.  Loesch is lying. She is perpetuating hate against women.  And if you ever hate yourself enough to read her Twitter stream, she is positively gleeful about it.

If Patricia Heaton was forced to apologize for her offensive remarks about Ms. Fluke, and Limbaugh was forced to non-apologize for his offensive remarks, it seems only fair that Loesch should be forced to issue what will surely be a non-apology on air.

Hate speech has consequences.  Glenn Beck found that out the hard way. Rush Limbaugh is finding that out the hard way, too.  And I suspect that other right-wing hatriots will sound find themselves airing radio silence or free PSAs because advertisers “want to avoid environments likely to stir negative sentiments.”

Premiere Networks is circulating a list of 98 advertisers who want to avoid “environments likely to stir negative sentiments.” The list includes carmakers (Ford, GM, Toyota), insurance companies (Allstate, Geico, Prudential, State Farm) and restaurants (McDonald’s, Subway)… [T]hose “environments” go beyond the Rush Limbaugh show. [...]

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.”

So again I ask you, CNN — What the fuck?!

***Of course if a woman choose to use contraception as birth control, that is her right. Just as it is her right to have premarital sex or to be out there banging six days a week.  What a woman does with her body is no choice but her own, and I’d appreciate it if the wingnuts would shut up about it already.

[via Think Progress; Media Matters; Radio Info]

[cross-posted at Balloon Juice]

RELATED POSTS:

• Stop Rush Wiki Project Tracker (by Shoq and dvnix)
• CNN’s Dana Loesch Suggests that Sandra Fluke’s Boyfriend Pay for Her Contraception
• Fox Nation Perpetuates Lies About Sandra Fluke [updated]
• #StopRush: Oink Limbaugh Scrubs Sexist Rant Against Sandra Fluke From Website (but I have screenshots!)
• I, Too, Will Accept Rush Limbaugh’s Apology
• Rush (the band) asks Rush (the human swine) to stop using their music (by eclectablog)
• Radio Stations Begin Dropping Rush Limbaugh 
• Advertisers Pulling Out of Limbaugh
• Patricia Heaton is a Coward (w/ screenshots)
• Issa’s False Equivalence on Limbaugh’s Misogyny
• Oink Limbaugh’s Rant Against Sandra Fluke
• Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke Responds to Oink Limbaugh
• Oink Limbaugh Demands that Sandra Fluke Post Sex Tapes Online 
• The Contraception/Slut Prophecy