Media Matters Operative Behind Rush Limbaugh ‘Advertiser Boycott’

Left-wing activists have been gleefully pushing the story that Rush Limbaugh has been supposedly losing advertisers ever since Limbaugh called contraception mandate advocate Sandra Fluke a “slut” on radio. But was this loss of advertisers really a reaction to genuine public outrage, or a coordinated plan waiting to be executed the instant Rush said anything remotely controversial? New evidence unearthed by Alana Goodman of Commentary Magazine and William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection suggests that the latter was definitely the case.

Specifically, Jacobson and Goodman finger Media Matters for America as the culprits behind the “advertiser boycott” on Limbaugh’s show. Their evidence is an interview with Media Matters’ Director of Online Strategy, Angelo Carusone, published in the Village Voice. Carusone has a rap sheet that many of our readers will be familiar with in a different context — he’s also behind the supposed “advertiser boycott” of Glenn Beck! Here’s Carusone in his own words on that topic:

I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, and for me, it became clear that things were pretty messed up. Our policies are messed up, and didn’t think the conversation around them was going well. I started looking at the irresponsible, reckless pillars of the media. Beck represented the worst of them at the time. He was extremely reckless, and illustrated the very worst of the media abdicating their responsibility. That’s why I picked him as a first target. Things for him turned out to be bad business. I think people should have opinions, and express them passionately, but there is a responsible way of doing that. He was being completely irresponsible, and that’s why I started Stop Beck, in July of 2009.

Read more here.

Starting Next Month, the U.S. Will Have the Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the World

On April 1, Japan will cut its corporate tax rate to 36.8 percent from 39.5 percent.

You know what that means, right?

This means that the United States will officially have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, with average combined federal and state profit levies of 39.2 percent.

“Yes, that’s higher than Sweden,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “Higher than Russia. And China, Mexico, Denmark and even France. Doesn’t it make you want to break out in a chant: U-S-A, U-S-A?”

As Japanese politicians found themselves staring down an increasingly burdensome deficit and an aging population, they came up with an idea: Cut the corporate profits tax to boost economic activity and generate higher revenues.

“The government approved an overall five percentage-point cut, which was delayed by last year’s earthquake and tsunami,” the Journal reports. “But the first installment arrives April 1 and in three years the rate will drop another 2.3 percentage points to 34.5 percent.”

The Journal report continues:

Japan‘s neighbors in Asia convinced Tokyo to act by luring investment from what used to be the world’s second-largest economy and is now the third, after the U.S. and China. Korea has cut its top corporate rate to 22 percent, Taiwan to 17 percent and Thailand is moving to 20 percent over the next two years. Hong Kong and Singapore have led the way with longstanding rates of 16.5 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

Japan is the latest country to act on the reality that high corporate taxes create “economic distortions.”

Supreme Court Says No to TV Cameras for Health Care Hearings

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected requests to allow television cameras in the courtroom for the upcoming arguments on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, though said it would release audio recordings of the proceedings on the same day.

In a statement, the court acknowledged the “extraordinary public interest” in the proceedings, set to be held over three days beginning March 26. Still, it was not enough to shake the long-held tradition of barring recording devices of any kind from the courtroom, despite pleas from many news organizations.

Instead, the court will post audio files and transcripts on its website in the afternoon following each day of proceedings.

Following the announcement, the C-SPAN cable network said it would broadcast the arguments on its cable channel and on the radio as soon as the recordings are available. A statement from the network said it was “disappointed” the court rejected its request to air the proceedings live.

The court’s statement did not actually address the issue of live recordings, merely providing directions where interested parties will be able to access the audio files and transcripts.

According to the AP, the court’s announcement is similar to the decision over the case of Bush v. Gore in 2000, which clinched George W. Bush’s election as president. It was the first time the justices provided audio of the arguments the same day they were held, after denying requests for the proceedings to be aired live.

Bin Laden Wanted to Assassinate Obama & Petraeus

A report in the Washington Post that said Osama bin Laden had been hatching a plan to assassinate President Barack Obama also contained another interesting nugget of information: A media adviser for the dead Al Qaida chief apparently doesn’t care for Fox News.

The Post report, published Friday, said Bin Laden hoped to attack the aircraft carrying Obama and Gen. David Petraeus, then the commander of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. The goal in killing Obama was to elevate Vice President Joe Biden to the position of commander in chief, whom Bin Laden believed incapable of doing the job.

“The reason for concentrating on them,” Bin Laden said, according to the Post, “is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency.…Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour…and killing him would alter the war’s path.”

The plans were gleaned from documents taken from Bin Laden’s Abottabad compound in Pakistan after he was killed last year by a team of elite Navy SEALs. The Post got an exclusive look at the documents, though administration officials contended there was never a serious threat.

According to the Post, Bin Laden hoped for a major terrorist attack to mark the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001:

They also had elaborate media plans. Adam Gadahn, a U.S.-born media adviser, even discussed in a message to his boss what would be the best television outlets for a bin Laden anniversary video.

“It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News let her die in her anger,” Gadahn wrote. At another point, he said of the networks: “From a professional point of view, they are all on one level — except (Fox News) channel, which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks objectivity, too.”

What an unintended boost for Fox, which can now boast that it is al-Qaeda’s least favorite network.

Media, Homosexuals Threaten Christian Minister

The New York Times, a paper supposedly devoted to freedom of speech, is giving sympathetic coverage to a frivolous lawsuit designed to silence an American Christian minister. Scott Lively is being sued by the George Soros-funded Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) for “crimes against humanity” for criticizing homosexuality during a trip to Uganda.

The suit represents the most extreme development yet in a Soros-funded campaign to expand rights for homosexuals and legalize prostitution in the East African country and destroy its emerging Christian culture.

Lively, who has spoken of the “The Global Threat of Homosexuality” and the “Lavender Marxists” targeting Uganda, was himself the target of protests from an ACORN-like group, Arise for Social Justice, as the suit was being filed and reported on by the Times. Lively is currently based in Massachusetts, where he runs Abiding Truth Ministries and Holy Grounds Coffee Shop, an inner-city Christian ministry which offers assistance to the poor, the homeless and the destitute.

The latter has been the subject of protests in the past from the Occupy movement.

“The lawsuit maintains that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture,” Times “journalist” Laurie Goodstein reports.

There is nothing in the 47-page suit that provides any such evidence of a conspiracy. Instead, the suit attempts to demonize Christians in Uganda, also named in the suit, who with the help of Americans such as Lively are trying to protect their culture from foreign interests.

A major supporter of the gay rights movement, Soros and his Open Society Institute sponsored a four-day workshop in 2009 on legal strategies “to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights in Africa,” including Uganda. The Open Society Institute acknowledged that its “Initiative for Eastern Africa” had drawn “scrutiny from conservative leaders” in Uganda “for supporting sexual minority groups.”

Contrary to what the Times reports, the real “conspiracy,” which is open for all to see, is now coming from the CCR, Arise for Social Justice, and the Times itself. They have launched an obviously coordinated attack on Lively, in an attempt to discredit and silence him. But another result could very well be more violent threats on Lively personally. Last October Lively spoke at a conference sponsored by Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) when Marxist protesters threw a couple of bricks through the glass doors of the church where he was appearing.

Read more here.

the Anti-Semitic Message Sent to a Blaze Advertiser Who Asked for Donations for a Holocaust Museum

4th Grader Pens Epic Letter to Local Meteorologist: ‘Unicorn Servants Will Feed You Doughnuts off Their Horns’

Feds Attack Family Farms. . . Again

Last summer The Blaze reported on the Obama administration’s double-pronged attack on family farms. This was seen in the new set of regulations coming from both the DOT and the Department of Labor.

The main focus of the new regulations proposed last year was on the operation of farm equipment. The DOT was trying to mandate that anyone operating a piece of mechanized farm equipment be subject to the same rules that apply to drivers of semi-tractor trailers. These changes would have essentially blocked all young people who work on family farms from operating even the smallest tractor or truck, unless those people would be able to pass the stringent tests and maintain the detailed logs that are required of truckers.

These rules would also open the door for the potential unionization of all farm workers in America. Even family farm workers.

During the comment period for the proposal, the outcry from the farming communities seemed to bring clarity to the situation. However, the DOT and Labor Departments continued churning in the background, writing new and different rules that would soon surface. In August the new rules were posted. They proposed barring anyone under the age of 16 from performing dangerous jobs, like driving tractors, handling pesticides and even branding cattle. A december 1st deadline for public comments was set and the public responded with more than 18,000 comments.

After December 1, 2011, a bi-partisan group of 28 Senators and 70 members of the House sent a letter to the Secretary of Labor, complaining about the new rules and asking that they be withdrawn until such time as the Labor Dept can prove the rules will significantly improve the safety of youth workers while having no significant economic impact on the farms.

The Des Moines Star Register’s coverage featured some significant passages from the letter:

“After having additional time to review the Proposed Rule and compare the proposed changes to existing statutory law, regulations, and the Department’s existing interpretive documents, we believe initial concerns were well-founded. As a result of these concerns, we request the Department withdraw the Proposed Rule in its entirety,” the Senators state in a letter to Secretary Solis. “It is puzzling why the Department would suddenly propose changes to existing regulations, particularly considering the advancements in farm equipment and adoption of technologies that have improved operator safety in the last 35 years.”

The statement from the group said “until recently, farms jointly owned and operated by multiple family members had discretion over the responsibilities they gave their children on the farm. But the proposed rule change would do away with that freedom and extend the parental exemption to farms owned solely by a parent. It is common in rural America for siblings to jointly own and operate farms and for extended family and neighbors to participate in agriculture production. With this rule change, the government is proposing to tell farmers and ranchers: We know what’s best for your children, and what they should and should not be doing.”

Read more here

Finally: The Paul Ryan presidential campaign ad

Catholic Bishops calling out America’s biggest lawbreaker: POTUS

The March 14 Statement on Religious Freedom and the HHS Mandate, issued by the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, calls the Obama contraception mandate “unjust and illegal.”

It’s a powerful statement, worth reading in its entirety, but here’s a key part of the statement:

The exemption is not merely a government foray into internal Church governance, where government has no legal competence or authority-disturbing though that may be. This error in theory has grave consequences in principle and practice. Those deemed by HHS not to be “religious employers” will be forced by government to violate their own teachings within their very own institutions. This is not only an injustice in itself, but it also undermines the effective proclamation of those teachings to the faithful and to the world.

This statement by the Catholic bishops comes nine days after release of a report by nine state attorneys general on 21 violations of law by the Obama administration that the AGs are currently fighting.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said President Obama and his deputies are “the greatest set of lawbreakers that have run the federal government in our lifetimes.”

The United States has suffered through leaders who violate laws here and there, and some more than others, but who generally respected the constitutional rule of law, or at least paid lip service to it.

So many of the methods and acts of governing employed by President Obama and his administration violate the constitutional rule of law that we must conclude the intent of his offences — at law called mens rea — is to govern in large part by violating our paramount law when that law is inconvenient to his agenda. His pronouncements, such as he can’t wait for Congress to act so he will, show that his very methods of governing are based in a brazen contempt for the Constitution.

This is not criminal. It is, however, wholly unacceptable for a President of the United States.

America will not — cannot — stand for such contempt for our fundamental and paramount law. The recent statements by the Catholic bishops and state attorneys general show that major institutions in America and their leaders are beginning to acknowledge that our lawbreaking POTUS lacks the legal and moral legitimacy to remain in office.

Read more here.

R