Morning Briefing for March 23, 2012

RedState Morning Briefing
March 23, 2012

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

Advertisement

———————————————————————-

1. Media Matters’ Desperate Need to Glory Hound Rush Limbaugh

The Washington Times has the story of Media Matters’ latest effort to drive Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves. They’ll use radio ads in eight cities.”In one of the anti-Limbaugh ads, listeners are urged to call the local station that carries Limbaugh to say “we don’t talk to women like that” in our city.”Ad time was purchased in Boston; Chicago; Detroit; Seattle; Milwaukee; St. Louis; Macon, Ga.; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The cities were selected to support active local campaigns against Limbaugh or because of perceptions Limbaugh may be vulnerable in that market, said Angelo Carusone of Media Matters.”What I found interesting was Media Matters listing Macon, GA. I’m writing this from Macon right now. It’s where I got my start on the radio and where I live. There is no active local campaign to silence Rush Limbaugh.That’s when I realized what Media Matters is doing. They say they are advertising in some locations because “of perceptions Limbaugh may be vulnerable in that market.”Media Matters is trying to be a glory hound and take credit if Rush Limbaugh is dropped when they have nothing to do with it.Three stations in the list, Macon, Detroit, and Chicago, are Cumulus Media stations. Cumulus Media has plans to launch Mike Huckabee as a competitor to Rush Limbaugh later this year. In fact, Cumulus’s management has, though to a lesser degree than Media Matters, been playing up Rush Limbaugh’s comments on Sandra Fluke suggesting Mike Huckabee would be a more responsible alternative.Already I’m being told Cumulus will offer Huckabee as a cheaper programming option than Limbaugh. Likewise, they plan to start putting Huckabee on a number of Cumulus stations around the country as their contract with the Premier Radio for Rush’s show expires. Even Rush’s flagship station, WABC, might go to Huckabee as it is owned by Cumulus.When it happens, Media Matters will try to take credit when, in fact, these are business decisions by Cumulus Media, which is struggling financially following its purchase of Citadel Broadcasting and wants some in house talent it can syndicate instead of having to pay Premier syndication fees.What’s most important though is why Media Matters is trying to keep the focus on Rush Limbaugh.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. People Are Badly Misinterpreting Rick Santorum

Much hay is being made of Rick Santorum saying he’d prefer Obama to Romney. Except that is not what he said or what he meant. Certainly he could have had a clarifying clause in his statement, but given the context, I think he was saying no more and no less than what I have been saying.I’m on record thinking it is over and Romney is the nominee, but the hand-wringing over Santorum is juvenile and reminds me again why I so dislike Team Romney. We’re going to have put up with months of Team Romney whining about things if he is the nominee. This is the latest example.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Obama’s Secret Debt Milestone

Here is a debt milestone that we surpassed this week, yet you won’t read about it anywhere in the media. The gross federal debt has increased more under Obama in just 3.2 years than it did during Bush’s entire 8-year tenure. And Bush was no limited government conservative either.When President Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001, the total federal debt stood at $5.728 trillion. On January 20, 2009, the day he left office, the debt had increased to $10.629 trillion, a jump of $4.9 trillion. Just 38 months later, the debt has increased another $4.954 trillion to a grand total of $15.583 trillion! Amazingly, $4.514 trillion, or 91% of the debt increase comes from the public share of the debt, which now stands at $10.8 trillion.We should also keep in mind that we are on pace to breach the $16.394 trillion debt limit before the November elections, even with the uptick in revenue. That means that he will have amassed almost $6 trillion in debt by the time he, God willing, leaves office next January. And it’s not just the $6 billion. He has set us on such an unsustainable trajectory that we will never achieve a balanced budget without massive restructuring of government. If Obama’s proposed budget blueprint was allowed to come to fruition, the federal debt would reach $26 trillion in 10 years assuming rosy revenue predictions.Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Washington Post’s Lisa Miller Is An Idiot. Part 2.

Earlier this month I posted on the attack by Lisa Miller, the Washington Post’s egregiously stupid religion correspondent, on Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney because they had large families. Miller found large families to be vaguely threatening to her self esteem and indicative of a “smug fecundity” and not valuing women for anything other than their ability to reproduce.Today Miller doubles down and accuses Rick Santorum of being a “cafeteria Catholic.”For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a cafeteria Catholic applies to Catholics who dissent from Church dogmas. These are the “smells and bells” Catholics who have some cultural attachment to the Church but find that its teachings on sodomy, birth control, etc. gives them hives and boils on their butt.For her evidence, Miller trots out the following killer evidence.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. The Club for Growth on the Ryan budget

Yesterday, the Club for Growth released a statement saying that the Ryan budget was “on balance, a disappointment to fiscal conservatives.” We applauded the strong pro-growth reforms in the bill, but the reasons for our opposition were twofold:First, the budget doesn’t balance within 10 years, or for that matter, even 20 years. Our country is currently enduring unsustainable trillion-dollar deficits. We cannot wait until 2040 — the year the Ryan budget balances (page 84) — in order to arrest our ever-growing national debt.Second, we are opposed to how the budget dismantles the annual sequestration spending cuts enacted into law by last year’s Budget Control Act (also known as the debt-limit deal). As you may recall, the debt deal established annual discretionary spending caps for the next ten years. But the debt deal also required additional cuts (both discretionary and mandatory) because the supercommittee failed. Therefore, for the upcoming year, the real number that needs to be achieved, beyond the spending cap, is $110 billion in cuts in total spending authority. But Ryan’s budget achieves less than that: $19 billion in discretionary cuts and $53 billion in cuts to mandatory authority, of which only $18 billion would be included in budget reconciliation, a fast-track process requiring committees to actually pass implementing legislation.Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. Same Talking Points For ALL The Countries

Danish broadcaster Thomas Buch-Anderson from Detektor has analyzed some of what President Obama has to say about other nations.Please click here for the rest of the post.

Advertisement

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos