Pentagon says military will still air Limbaugh

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON — A Pentagon spokesman says the military's network will continue to air Rush Limbaugh's radio program.

George Little says the American Forces Network offers a wide range of programming to reflect listeners' interests and he is unaware of any plans to review that decision.

Limbaugh has come under fire for an outburst on his radio program last week when he called a 30-year-old law student a "slut" after she testified before Congress about birth control policies. He has since apologized.

The network on its website says that Limbaugh's show is popular. It says it doesn't try to protect listeners from hearing views with which they may disagree.


Read more: http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/10814362/

[jwirr]

1. What liberal commentators are aired on American Forces Network?

[Frances]

4. If a liberal asked a woman to post

a video of her having sex, can you imagine the howls of protest? That person would have been off air immediately. And rightfully so.

[gateley]

5. I was just going to ask this. nt

[Common Sense Party]

8. Isn't Ed Schultz on there? I know he was once.

[SpartanDem]

14. Ed Schultz

Ed's the only liberal, but they have three convservatives Rush, Hannity and Huckabee

http://myafn.dodmedia.osd.mil/AFNRadio.aspx

[PavePusher]

20. NPR. n/t

[Bjorn Against]

52. NPR is a news station, it is not progressive talk

They actually have more Republicans on NPR than they have liberals, it is not and never has been a liberal network.

[PavePusher]

53. Ummmmm.... wow. O.K. n/t

[Bjorn Against]

54. It has been that way for years, seriously look at the numbers

I realize this link is pretty old but I have heard more recent numbers as well and they say the same thing, there are more Republican guests on NPR than liberals. That is a fact, and I challenge you to find anything that shows otherwise.

Despite the commonness of such claims, little evidence has ever been presented for a left bias at NPR, and FAIR’s latest study gives it no support. Looking at partisan sources—including government officials, party officials, campaign workers and consultants—Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 3 to 2 (61 percent to 38 percent). A majority of Republican sources when the GOP controls the White House and Congress may not be surprising, but Republicans held a similar though slightly smaller edge (57 percent to 42 percent) in 1993, when Clinton was president and Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. And a lively race for the Democratic presidential nomination was beginning to heat up at the time of the 2003 study.

Partisans from outside the two major parties were almost nowhere to be seen, with the exception of four Libertarian Party representatives who appeared in a single story (Morning Edition, 6/26/03).

Republicans not only had a substantial partisan edge, individual Republicans were NPR’s most popular sources overall, taking the top seven spots in frequency of appearance. George Bush led all sources for the month with 36 appearances, followed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (8) and Sen. Pat Roberts (6). Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Secretary of State Colin Powell, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and Iraq proconsul Paul Bremer all tied with five appearances each.

Senators Edward Kennedy, Jay Rockefeller and Max Baucus were the most frequently heard Democrats, each appearing four times. No nongovernmental source appeared more than three times. With the exception of Secretary of State Powell, all of the top 10 most frequently appearing sources were white male government officials.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1180

[2ndAmForComputers]

59. Well, you know...

For some people, everything and everybody to the left of Augusto Pinochet is a dirty commie.

[Quantess]

65. True.

It is to the left of FOX, for what it's worth. But then, reality is also to the left of FOX.

[zbdent]

24. I think that there's only one hour

of "liberal" talk ...

(that is per day ... not week/month)

[hack89]

30. Here is their broadcast schedule

Radio:

http://myafn.dodmedia.osd.mil/AFNRadio.aspx

TV:

http://myafn.dodmedia.osd.mil/ScheduleChart.aspx

[hack89]

31. Alan Colmes, Ed Schultz, Dave Ross, NPR. nt

[izquierdista]

40. What doesn't belong on that list?

National rePublican Radio

[dkofos]

63. Thom Hartmann.

[Frances]

2. Why is no one mentionong Limbaugh asking Flute to post video of her having sex?

That is soliticitation of porn and has no place on taxpayer supported radio.

[JHB]

3. Yeah, that's true right up until it isn't

Keep pushing for him to be dropped.

[Fearless]

27. +1

[florida08]

6. not surprising

War profiteers aren't democratic

[Wait Wut]

7. That will only work until he's off the air completely.

Or, until taxpayers stop paying for it.

Keep up the pressure, everyone. And, damnit...thank you, AOL.

[xxqqqzme]

9. That was an apology?

Not where I live.

[gateley]

10. I just posted this from the AFRN site:

Armed Forces Radio Network

PLEASE NOTE ** AFRN does not air Rush Limbaugh!!!. He is on AFN - EUROPE which is operated by AFRTS ,email them [e-mail]

http://www.armedforcesradionetwork.org/music.html

[obamanut2012]

11. I called my SEnators' and Rep's office

Women are part of the military. Would they keep Limbaugh if he said this about Hispanics, or Blacks, or Jews? That's what I said when their staff member answered the phone.

[Frances]

28. I called Anna Eshoo, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein's offices

to ask that they do everything they can to keep Limbaugh off the air because of his request that Fluke make a video of herself having sex and then post the video online so he and his listeners could watch.

To me, that statement was like crying "Fire" in a crowded theater. The military is already grappling with sexual harassment issues and Rush's statement will only make matters worse. Explaining that the military is kicking Rush off the air for his statements would go a long way toward ensuring everyone that the military will not tolerated sexual harassment in any form.

[obamanut2012]

64. That's lamost exactly what I said!

Sexual assault and harassment is so bad, the military has an official name for it: MST (Military Sexual Trauma). It is insanely high.

[obamanut2012]

66. I just posted a thread about MST in GD n/t

[evilhime]

12. I'm sorry to hear that

since it reinforces those with violent tendencies toward women . It also teaches that disrespect toward one group is acceptable. How sad that the Pentagon is still that far behind the times. I had thought they were coming into the 21st century but maybe not.

[kirby]

13. 41% of female veterans report being

sexually assaulted in the military. 29% reported they were raped during service.

So why would they cancel Rush? He seems to fit the demographic.

[barbtries]

15. why be surprised.

the military is sort of the traditional boys' club after all isn't it. nonetheless i am disappointed. especially considering that if the military pays for that programming, it's MY money paying to spread the hate.

[Bonhomme Richard]

16. Think about this. Here is a guy that spews hate and vitriol at the Commander in Chief....

daily to the troops under his command and the Pentagon doesn't see a problem? What does that tell you about the high ranking brass that make the decision?

[Hugabear]

37. You assume that many military types disagree with Limbaugh's feelings towards their C-in-C

I can't speak for nowadays, but during my time in service during the Clinton years, a lot of military types weren't very keen on Clinton.
In fact, it wasn't unheard of to see the President's photo missing from the Chain of Command that usually sat on the wall.

[Bonhomme Richard]

45. That's exactly my point. n/t

[msongs]

17. wanna bet a majority of AFN listeners agree with Rush about women? nt

[patrice]

22. Well, when you work for the man, you listen to the man even if he is a misogynist homophobe

racist.

True. story.

[Iliyah]

18. Rush spew his vitriol

hatred towarded any race, creed, gender, class, that are not in line with his insane ideology, ahem, the gop party.

[glinda]

19. There needs to be an investigation of the Pentagon's role and either defund or correct the

situation. This works against our Citizen's interests and our Country's Foundation.

[avebury]

21. Maybe it is time to defund the American Forces Network. nt

[kestrel91316]

25. Now you're talking. Just like they have defunded NPR.

[avebury]

41. The difference is that NPR does not promote hate and bigotry. I have no problem with them

giving air time to a conservative as all sides do have a right to be heard. I do have a problem with airing someone who does nothing but spew hatred, bigotry and just plain old idiocy. If you listen to his rant on Sandra Fluke you have to wonder if Limbaugh even knows what contraception is and how it works. He is just part of the general dumbing down of our society.

[totodeinhere]

23. I would like to see then replace Limbaugh with Thom Hartman. n/t

[raouldukelives]

26. Last thing they want is liberal commentators

Gotta have the propaganda. Who would rile up the troops to kill the poor people sitting on our God given natural resources? When people are allowed to think for themselves all kinds of unpredictable crap happens.

[hack89]

32. Do you consider Alan Colmes and Ed Schultz liberal? nt

[awoke_in_2003]

35. Alan? no. nt

[raouldukelives]

44. Compared to Rush I do.

But then Nixon would be too. I like Schultz for the most part but I also believe he knows who writes his checks and won't cross certain lines. He's the safe choice to provide for liberal talking points while still remaining hawkish.

[lebkuchen]

29. This is such a sad commentary on the decision making process at AFN

There have been so many insults that Limbaugh has aired on AFN aimed at women (in uniform), people of color (in uniform), gays (in uniform), multi-ethnicities (in uniform), you name it. Limbaugh can do no wrong in the eyes of AFN. He has free reign of their programming.

[1776Forever]

33. My message sent to Armed Forces Europe email: [e-mail]

The American Tax Payers should not be paying or allowing hate filled messages about women, any woman, to be aired on our Military Radio Stations! Enough! If you allow this terrible language then we are blessing it and it does not belong in our message to our values or our beliefs.

Time to get Rush Limbaugh off the air - all free air of any kind!

...........

Email address is [e-mail] - Armed Forces Europe is where Rush's show is broadcast to our troops.

[eyewall]

34. Rush Limbaugh trains his listeners to hate Democrats, Hispanics, Blacks,

Welfare recipients, Public Schools, National Public Radio, LGBT, etc. That's well over half of the population of AMERICA. It's not just political opinion, he uses public airwaves to generate hatred towards Americans, and, as someone mentioned above, the Commander in Chief (which was also true of President Clinton).

These are not "views" with which some people may disagree, they are seditious attempts at creating a violent rift between Americans while also undermining the authority of the President. His racist and misogynist "views" are woven into a fabricated political architecture which is intended to promote an agenda using prevarication and innuendo to condition his listeners to ignore any diverse opinions or even actual facts. He has admitted this publicly in an NPR interview where he boasted that he uses lies to forward a specific "conservative agenda" and that he has trained his listeners to never listen to NPR or any non-conservative-bias news sources.

He has no place on any Armed Forces (or public in my opinion) network. His mission is to train Americans to hate more than half of the American population. The only difference between his program and the program of the late Osama Bin Laden is that Bin Laden taught Arabs to hate Americans.

[csziggy]

50. +1000000

[Catherine Vincent]

68. Well said!

[olddad56]

36. now that is big surprise, got to keep the troops as brainwashed as possible.

[polichick]

39. Just one more disgusting way our money is used by the pentagon.

[workinclasszero]

42. Limbaugh attacks women and gays serving in the military

Why the HELL is this traitor, not to mention draft dodger, PAID WITH OUR TAXES, to insult and degrade our military service members!?

That is total BS and cannot stand!!!!

[deacon_sephiroth]

43. Don't get discouraged

That's just a guy saying he has no knowledge of PLANS to change it, not that it WON'T or CAN'T change. Get that petition moving!

[shcrane71]

48. Thank you for that. If more and more local stations drop Limbaugh, it would look pretty silly for

AFN to continue to carry him. Contact the FCC and ask that your local station that aired Rush's solicitation for pornography be fined.

After all, more people find Rush's 3-day misogynistic rant more offensive than Janet Jackson's breast incident.

http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

[deacon_sephiroth]

49. AFN IS my local!

I'm in the AF, and I'm going direct with AFN.

[shcrane71]

51. Thank you for your service.

[PSPS]

46. Nothing from the Mormon Church, either.

They still play his show on their string of AM hate radio stations (owned by Bonneville Broadcasting, their wholly-owned media arm.)

[MannyGoldstein]

47. No shit.

IOKIYAR - they always get a pass from Democrats.

[radhika]

55. I'm thinking of charges of rape and sexual abuse of women

working in Iraq and Afghanistan, often with military contractors with no line of command.

Does the spewing of misogynist Rush on AFN make these deployed women safer and more respected?

[rickrok66]

56. Other ways to respond

As someone who is retired military, everybody doesn't want to hear his show. Consider that most people in the military are young (under 30) and would rather listen to music or something without someone yelling at you through a radio. I don't know how AFN makes their program schedule, but they try to reach a balance and often get what they can for free or low cost - all the award shows are aired after they are on in the US as well as most reality shows - after everyone knows who the winner is. Shows (CSI, etc) are from the year before and Leno/Dave is a day later. Headline News was streamed live when I was in Korea.

Anyway, other ways to respond is like AFN's Facebook page and start posting your complaints, they have twitter too:

Feedback on website:
http://myafn.dodmedia.osd.mil/Email.aspx#

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/AFNRadio?

Twitter
http://twitter.com/#!/afnradio

[dfherher]

57. Spam deleted by NRaleighLiberal (MIR Team)

[marias23]

58. Sign Petition to Ban Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio

This isn't over SIGN PETITION TO OBAMA HERE
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/sec-panetta-get-rush-limbaugh-armed-forces-radio-now-no-tax-money-abusive-divisive-insulting/p439GWMm#thank-you=p

[Rhiannon12866]

60. Link didn't work for me, but this one does:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002382135

[0rganism]

61. Funny how Rush gets taxpayer money for this

since he regularly rants about how the government misuses our taxpayer dollars so badly. Well maybe he's right in this particular case, how about AFN can keep broadcasting his shit if we don't all have to pay for it?

[Cooley Hurd]

62. Great. At a time when sexual assaults are up in the military, they choose to keep the misogynist...

...on the air.

[Islandlife]

67. It's not impossible to imagine that he appeals to his listeners.

It is to be expected that he has not lost all market share no matter how strongly some resent him.

No one will be able to limit his freedom of speech by complaining about his listeners. Not worth trying and not worth the excitement.