Earlier today, AOL announced that they were among the several companies that would no longer advertise on Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated radio show. The exodus comes on the tails of Limbaugh’s comments last week that Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke was a “slut” and a “prostitute” for complaining that she wasn’t able to be heard at a House committee to determine if making employers cover birth control violates their religious rights. Ms. Fluke is a student the University of Georgetown which is a Jesuit institution and is complaining that Obama-care infringes on their first amendment right to religious freedoms.
This challenge is one of many that the Obamacare bill has faced since it was signed into law. The law is currently at the Supreme Court for review and many experts believe that it will be struck down as a mandate to buy. While the government does have the right to levy taxes, no where does it say that the government has the right to tell a citizen that they must buy any product. Arguments have been made that we are all forced to buy car insurance, but that is a states rights thing.
The question I ask is why now? Is it because there is a huge election coming? Or is all due to the fact that this is the first real sexist remark he has made where as all the other controversial topics were either racist or bigoted in nature. To me that make these companies worse. How dare they decide that racism is ok, but sexism is out of bounds? And the people who are calling these companies? They hate Rush no matter what he says, this just gives them an excuse to try to get him off of the air, but that will neve happen. He makes every station that airs his show so much money because the way he thinks is in the majority. The vast majority of people in America are Evangelical Christians that agree with nearly everything Rush has to say. If this really is America, then stop complaining and change the station when you see or hear something you don’t like. The only thing that will pull a show or a person off of the air are people not tuning in.
As of this time, the current companies that have bailed on Rush are AOL, Quicken Loans, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, Citrix Systems Inc., and Legal Zoom.
At AOL one of our core values is that we act with integrity. (1/3)
We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh’s comments are not in line with our values. (2/3)
As a result we have made the decision to suspend advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Radio show. (3/3)
We don’t condone negative comments directed toward any group. In response, we are currently pulling our ads from Rush with Rush Limbaugh.
Recent comments by Rush Limbaugh do not align w/our values, so we made decision to immediately suspend all advertising on that program.