For the Dittoheads

Todays Laugh,
One night, a police officer was staking out a particularly rowdy bar for possible violations of the driving under the influence laws. At closing time, he saw a fellow stumble out of the bar, trip on the curb, and try his keys on five different cars before he found his.Then, sat in the front seat fumbling around with his keys for several minutes. Everyone left the bar and drove off. Finally, he started his engine and began to pull away.The police officer was waiting for him. He stopped the driver, read him his rights and administered the Breathalyzer test. The results showed a reading of 0.0. The puzzled officer demanded to know how that could be. The driver replied, "Tonight, I'm the Designated Decoy."
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Most Loathsome People
Rush Limbaugh
Charges: It’s hard to believe this repulsive shit fountain is even human, until you remember that we share 70% of our DNA with pigs. Then again, to be any more hypocritical Rush would actually have to be a member of another species. After the Democrats took congress in November, Limbaugh said he felt "liberated" because "I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried," essentially telling his listeners he’d been lying to them all year. The dittoheads didn’t mind; that’s why they listen.
Exhibit A: If someone had taken a shotgun and blown Rush’s head clean off while he was wobbling his bloated body back and forth in an inconceivably cruel mockery of Michael J. Fox, whom he accused of faking his Parkinson’s symptoms for political effect, it would have been the greatest viral video of them all.
Sentence: Parkinson’s disease, of course, triggered by oxycontin abuse.
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LIMBAUGH ‘STAYS THE COARSE’: CLAIMS FDR FAKED POLIO
By Don Davis
Rush Limbaugh, undaunted by his latest embarrassment — his FOX-like attack on Michael J. Fox for the sin of having Parkinson’s Disease — has now gone one step further, claiming that FDR faked polio and paralysis in order to pass the New Deal.
Limbaugh explained that "if not for FDR’s Oscar-caliber acting job, the unemployed and sick would still be dying in the streets, the way God intended it to be."
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Rhyme by Madaline Khan
Limbaugh maligned Michael Fox,Who is ill and admired and rocks.But drug popping Rush Doesn’t know when to hush, And he’s happy to sick people mock
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Molly Ivins on Limbaugh
From Mother Jones
Lyin' Bully
Commentary: Instead of picking on someone his own size, Rush consistently targets dead people, little girls, and the homeless--none of whom can fight back.
By Molly Ivins
May/June 1995 Issue

One of the things that concerns a lot of Americans lately is the increase in plain old nastiness in our political discussion. It comes from a number of sources, but Rush Limbaugh is a major carrier.
I should explain that I am not without bias in this matter. I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn't actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.
I have a correspondent named Irwin Wingo in Weatherford, Texas. Irwin and some of the leading men of the town are in the habit of meeting about 10 every morning at the Chat'n'Chew Cafe to drink coffee and discuss the state of the world. One of their number is a dittohead, a Limbaugh listener. He came in one day, plopped himself down, and said, "I think Rush is right: Racism in this country is dead. I don't know what the niggers will find to gripe about now."
I wouldn't say that dittoheads, as a group, lack the ability to reason. It's just that whenever I run across one, he seems to be at a low ebb in reasoning skills. Poor ol' Bill Sarpalius, one of our dimmer Panhandle congressmen, was once trying to explain to a town hall meeting of his constituents that Limbaugh was wrong when he convinced his listeners that Bill Clinton's tax package contained a tax increase on the middle class. (It increased taxes only on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.) A dittohead in the crowd rose to protest: "We don't send you to Washington to make responsible decisions. We send you there to represent us."
The kind of humor Limbaugh uses troubles me deeply, because I have spent much of my professional life making fun of politicians. I believe it is a great American tradition and should be encouraged. We should all laugh more at our elected officials--it's good for us and good for them. So what right do I have to object because Limbaugh makes fun of different pols than I do?
I object because he consistently targets dead people, little girls, and the homeless--none of whom are in a particularly good position to answer back. Satire is a weapon, and it can be quite cruel. It has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful. When you use satire against powerless people, as Limbaugh does, it is not only cruel, it's profoundly vulgar. It is like kicking a cripple.
On his TV show, early in the Clinton administration, Limbaugh put up a picture of Socks, the White House cat, and asked, "Did you know there's a White House dog?" Then he put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, who was 13 years old at the time and as far as I know had never done any harm to anyone.
When viewers objected, he claimed, in typical Limbaugh fashion, that the gag was an accident and that without his permission some technician had put up the picture of Chelsea--which I found as disgusting as his original attempt at humor.
On another occasion, Limbaugh put up a picture of Labor Secretary Robert Reich that showed him from the forehead up, as though that were all the camera could get. Reich is indeed a very short man as a result of a bone disease he had as a child. Somehow the effect of bone disease in children has never struck me as an appropriate topic for humor.
The reason I take Rush Limbaugh seriously is not because he's offensive or right-wing, but because he is one of the few people addressing a large group of disaffected people in this country. And despite his frequent denials, Limbaugh does indeed have a somewhat cultlike effect on his dittoheads. They can listen to him for three and a half hours a day, five days a week, on radio and television. I can assure you that David Koresh did not harangue the Branch Davidians so long nor so often. But that is precisely what most cult leaders do--talk to their followers hour after hour after hour.
A large segment of Limbaugh's audience consists of white males, 18 to 34 years old, without college education. Basically, a guy I know and grew up with named Bubba.
Bubba listens to Limbaugh because Limbaugh gives him someone to blame for the fact that Bubba is getting screwed. He's working harder, getting paid less in constant dollars and falling further and further behind. Not only is Bubba never gonna be able to buy a house, he can barely afford a trailer. Hell, he can barely afford the payments on the pickup.
And because Bubba understands he's being shafted, even if he doesn't know why or how or by whom, he listens to Limbaugh. Limbaugh offers him scapegoats. It's the "feminazis." It's the minorities. It's the limousine liberals. It's all these people with all these wacky social programs to help some silly, self-proclaimed bunch of victims. Bubba feels like a victim himself--and he is--but he never got any sympathy from liberals.
Psychologists often tell us there is a great deal of displaced anger in our emotional lives--your dad wallops you, but he's too big to hit back, so you go clobber your little brother. Displaced anger is also common in our political life. We see it in this generation of young white men without much education and very little future. This economy no longer has a place for them. The corporations have moved their jobs to Singapore. Unfortunately, it is Limbaugh and the Republicans who are addressing the resentments of these folks, and aiming their anger in the wrong direction.
In my state, I have not seen so much hatred in politics since the heyday of the John Birch Society in the early 1960s. Used to be you couldn't talk politics with a conservative without his getting all red in the face, arteries standing out in his neck, wattles aquiver with indignation--just like a pissed-off turkey gobbler. And now we're seeing the same kind of anger again.
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, the organization that provided the absurd Limbaughisms that you see to the right, has a sweet, gentle faith that truth will triumph in the end, and thinks it is sufficient to point out that Limbaugh is wrong. I say it's important to point out that he's not just wrong but that he's ridiculous, one of the silliest people in America. Sure, it takes your breath away when he spreads some false and vicious rumor, such as the story that Vincent Foster's body was actually discovered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton. Or when he destroys an important lobby-control bill by falsely claiming that it would make the average citizen subject to lobbying laws. Yes, that's sick and perverse.
But it's important to show people that there is much more wrong with Limbaugh's thinking than just his facts. Limbaugh specializes in ad hominem arguments, which are themselves ridiculously easy to expose. Ted Kennedy says, "America needs health care reform." Limbaugh replies, "Ted Kennedy is fat."
Rush Limbaugh's pathetic abuse of logic, his absurd pomposity, his relentless self-promotion, his ridiculous ego--now those, friends, are appropriate targets for satire.
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Commentary: On the eve of President Bush's 2007 budget proposal, freshman Senator and Senate Budget Committee member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) demands a financial plan for America that rolls back tax cuts for the wealthy and stands up for the middle class and working poor.
By Bernie Sanders
Early next month, the president has an historic opportunity to submit a federal budget to a Democratically-controlled Congress that will expand the middle class, reduce the enormous gap between the rich and the poor, and lower the poverty rate. But don’t hold your breath. The president’s pledge to make all of his tax cuts permanent, including hundreds of billions to the wealthiest people in our country, while balancing the budget within five years, is not an encouraging sign of things to come.
While there is still time to change course, it appears that the president’s budget proposal will be closer than ever to meeting Grover Norquist’s goal of cutting government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that when the Republicans controlled Congress, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously declared that "deficits don’t matter."
Or, when then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, upped the ante by telling a group of bankers that "Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes."
In large part by ramming through massive tax giveaways to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations, President Bush and the Republican Congress were responsible for racking-up the three largest deficits in U.S. history and accumulating a record-breaking $8.6 trillion national debt.
And now, with the Democrats in control of Congress, the president has suddenly gotten deficit-reduction religion while continuing his failed trickle-down economic policies. If the president succeeds, his plan will inevitably lead to massive cutbacks in Medicare, Medicaid, education, veterans' benefits, and the environment. I do not believe that is the vision of America that voters had in mind when they put Democrats in charge of Congress last November.
At a time when millions of Americans are struggling to keep their heads above water economically the last thing we need to do is to make the president's tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. What is needed in Washington is the political courage to roll-back the president's tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent and stand-up for the middle class and working poor.
The president still believes that the economy is booming as a result of his tax breaks. But the president fails to note that since he has been in office, 5.4 million middle class Americans have slipped into poverty, 6.8 million Americans have lost their health insurance, median income for working-age families has declined for five consecutive years, and 3 million manufacturing workers have lost their jobs. At the same time, the costs of education, prescription drugs, energy, and housing have risen dramatically.
Meanwhile, the wealthy have never had it so good. The richest 13,000 households earn nearly as much income as the bottom 20 million and the top one percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.
In terms of our federal budget priorities there is one key question which must be asked. Which side are we on: the rich and the powerful or the middle class and working families?
As a member of the Senate Budget Committee the choice is pretty clear to me. I will not be voting for more tax breaks for the outgoing CEO of Home Depot who recently received a $210 million golden parachute. Rather, I will be voting to substantially increase financial aid for low and middle class families so that every American, regardless of income, can receive a college education. I will not support a tax cut for the former CEO of Pfizer who received a $200 million compensation package. Instead, I will vote to substantially increase funding for child care so that working families can find affordable and quality care for their children.
I don't think that the former CEO of Exxon-Mobil, who managed to get a $400 million retirement package, needs more tax relief. In my view, it is far more important that we keep our promises to the veterans of this country who now find themselves on waiting lists to get the health care they need.
If, as a nation, we are serious about addressing the long neglected needs of the working people of this country and creating a more egalitarian society, we have got to invest in education, health care, housing, infrastructure, environmental protection and sustainable energy as well as many other areas. We also have to reduce our national debt. Given that reality, Congress must develop the courage to stand up to the big money interests and roll-back the tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent, eliminate corporate welfare and demand that the wealthy and powerful rejoin American society.
We should do no less.