Schlussel’s Huck-bashing is spawned from her protection of Rush Limbaugh, who lists her blog at the top of his websites “stack of stuff” for daily reading. Huckabee recently signed on to do a 3 hour radio show in Rush’s time slot. Debbie’s fiery analysis:

Here is my prediction on the ever-changing fraud, Hucksterbee: he will fail. He’ll probably get a few Cumulus stations to replace Rush with his Cumulus-syndicated show. But Rush will go on competing stations and kick the crap out of the Huckster in the ratings.

Huckster has no moral compass. He has no ideology. While, today, he is Israel’s best friend and right wing on the Middle East, not long before that he wrote an article in Foreign Policy magazine attacking U.S. policy in the Middle East and blaming it for our troubles and why terrorists hate us. Yup, typical left-wing, blame-America-and-Israel BS. And he wrote that before he was gunning to get his FOX News show and high-paid contributor gig. He did a 180 when he began running for President. But we saw his true colors when he attacked the ethnicity and religion of a liberal reporter he didn’t like. Aren’t there liberal Christian and Muslim reporters? Of course there are, but Huck wants you to know about the JOOOOS. Yes, Ramsey wrote about it in his book, but Hucksterbee chose to highlight it and point out the religion on FOX News to appeal to anti-Semites.

And don’t forget when Hucksterbee pardoned a hardened criminal and murderer for no legit reason. The guy went on to kill several cops. Yup, he’s not tough on crime or anything else. Not a conservative. Just one for when he needs a gazillion zeros in his paycheck.

And that’s why he’ll never beat Rush. Rush usually believes what he says (not always, and I’ve caught him in plenty of inconsistences, plus he’s admitted to me that he says some things to get under the left’s skin – his absurd support for the United Arab Emirates and Dubai running our ports is one example.) And audiences know that. Some audiences are stupid (Exhibit A: Sean Hannity radio show). But most aren’t–at least not all of the time. They can tell when someone is feeding them fertilizer. In most cases, they know Limbaugh means what he says and vice versa. With the Huckster, they’ll know he’s a fake.

Hucksterbee is selling his show as a “kinder, gentler” conservative talk. Ain’t no such thing. No one wants to hear boring NPR-style debates about how soup tastes great hot and ice cream is delish cold.

His show won’t last. Mark my word. It may take a few years. But he’ll dump his show like O’Reilly did or move to a different time slot. And I, for one, will never listen to this closeted Jew-hater, whose real views came out as he fawned over a murder suspect who might have done it.

My next reaction is guilt that I was predisposed to hate on this seemingly legit product rollout. In fact, I’m such a jerk that after being unable to find any holes in this on my own, I actually went searching for criticism of this new venture to spark alive whatever part of my brain was failing on this. So far I’ve only found similar “wow…this is silly” surprise commentary and over-the-top cynicism that rests entirely on the old Marxist meme of everything that earns a profit by definition cheats the consumer and/or anything right wing is nothing but wicked corporate greed. Yawn…

The conservative movement is primarily a means by which the wealth of rabid right-wingers is redistributed to celebrities. Sometimes the money comes from billionaires, who know exactly what they’re buying when they fund advocacy groups and think tanks, but the whole scheme is basically powered by regular right-wing folks who are kept riled up and angry enough to keep sending checks to frauds and buying books full of alarming lies.

Limbaugh is donating a percentage of the profits to a military charity, but isn’t misleading with his sales pitch. If you watch the video of his announcement on the show, he has no shame about this being a for-profit venture which just happens to have a charity component as opposed to the other way around. Bill O’Reilly, on the other hand makes no money on his endless streams of merch, donating 100% of the profits to charity.

So as long as the buyer isn’t being duped and as long as the product is of average (or better, one hopes) quality, then there’s really nothing wrong with this and haters have no valid argument against it beyond “this is silly”, which it totally is, but whatever. You’re gonna tell me Lady Gaga merch isn’t silly?

Selling overpriced versions of every-day products with celebrity branding is a fine American tradition that serves both the enthusiast/fanatic consumer and the economy. It is the business model behind every single celebrity perfume (Michael Jordan, Kim Kardashian, 50 cent, Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Simpson, Tiger Woods – just to name a few). Stores can’t keep Justin Bieber nail polish on the shelves (I know. I’ve checked), and that is pretty much the epitome of the “what product does our fan base use that we can sell them by putting this name on?” marketing strategy.

Limbaugh plays this with a straight face, lacking any ironic or self deprecating tells that he realizes this is silly, leading me to believe he doesn’t, which is partly what makes me confused on how I should be feeling about this.

In contrast, Bill O’Reilly has admitted that he finds almost all of his Factor Gear products to be utterly ridiculous and often laughs when giving his sales pitches of them. That’s the way to do it… be self aware, be shameless about pushing it, and donate the proceeds to charity. It’s one of the reasons I own a “The Rain Stops Here” O’Reilly Factor umbrella (among other fine items. not kidding).

Limbaugh is doing parts of that here, so whatever. I approve. I won’t be buying any, but I approve.

One year and 2 weeks ago after the 2008 presidential election, the Fox News Channel was duped into reporting that an unnamed McCain campaign figure revealed that failed Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Good thing the media has learned to check its sources more thoroughly before airing these kinds of reports, right? lulz.

Fake “boy trapped in a runaway balloon” controversy fooled every single channel including the BBC.

Phony climate change press conference fools CNBC and Reuters.

Fake quotes of racism attributed to Rush Limbaugh fool NBC & CNN.

Now fake Obama thesis fools Limbaugh.

its a good time to be a hoax…

They work because they act on the principal of truthiness, or the idea that “I want it to be true, so I will choose to believe it IS true”. Dan Rather wanted President Bush to have a shady military record, Sarah Palin critics wanted her to be proved to be the yokel imbecile they assessed her as from day one,  the world wanted a boy named Falcon to be in that balloon flying out of control through the sky, CNBC wanted to hear there would be a change in policy regarding climate change, NBC wanted Limbaugh to be exposed as a filthy racist and Limbaugh wanted Obama to be exposed as a Constitution hater.

Only CNBC and Limbaugh corrected these hoaxes on air within minutes of being fooled by them. All the rest let over 24 hours pass before telling the truth.

Exactly. dumbasses. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s cool to hate on talk show hosts you don’t like all you want, it’s NOT cool to go attacking their attempt to own a small piece of a sports team and it’s not even acceptable to go smearing the hell out of someone as a “racist” over things they never said or inserting racism into statements that had, have and COULD have no racist motive.

Last Monday on The O’Reilly Factor, Detroit Free-Press columnist Drew Sharp argued that the NFL has a right to turn down a “a very polarizing, controversial figure whose occupational practice is largely predicated on making people feel comfortable with their own biases and prejudices.”

After Sharp refers to “racially tinged sound bites” that O’Reilly and his crack research team could not uncover, O’Reilly plays the comment Rush made on ESPN in 2003 regarding Donovan McNabb, then asks if it should disqualify Limbaugh from owning an NFL team. “What it does qualify him for is being a race baiter,” Sharp responds. “I do believe he throws in sound bites… strictly for effect.”

Later in the week it was revealed that those first quotes attributed to Limbaugh were made up.

Today on Reliable Sources, a CNN show I podcast, they discussed Limbaughs attempt at the RAMS:

“My friends, there’s now a second medical study which confirms that secondhand smoke doesn’t kill. Not only does it not kill, it doesn’t do much damage.” -Rush Limbaugh

And then you woke up Rushie. Staunch conservatives like Limbaugh are pleased as peanut pie at a new study that (as seen above) they say proves that secondhand smoke is pretty much harmless.

Any logical thinker knows this is impossible.

Philip Morris Tobacco company itself says the following about second hand smoke on it’s website (philipmorrisusa.com): “Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In addition, public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke can exacerbate adult asthma and cause eye, throat and nasal irritation.”

So the tobacco makers admit the harmful effects of smoking…but the tobacco smokers say they’re lying? I don’t get it.

Of course, not all Tobacco distributors feel the same way, and the industry in general defends smoking and second hand smoke whenever possible, so this thing from Philip Morris might be an advisory requirement or court ordered thing or who knows.

Still Philip Morris doesn’t back out of it’s statement or spin their position at all. They consistantly conclude that “Philip Morris USA believes that the conclusions of public health officials concerning environmental tobacco smoke are sufficient to warrant measures that regulate smoking in public places. We also believe that where smoking is permitted, the government should require the posting of warning notices that communicate public health officials’ conclusions that secondhand smoke causes disease in non-smokers.”

It’s like saying that licking someone else’s bacon grease is harmless to your health. Technically, it is. And if that is the conclusion you want to come to, it is not difficult to spin some research into making such a deduction.

For instance, it is quite possible to eat greasy oily foods and not suffer any immediate health problem. You could have a targeted diet that allows the intake of such foods, or you could just be lucky and have a working system that doesn’t noticeably debilitate until a certain point. – But not everyone is so lucky. So is it thus fair to force everyone around you either lick your bacon grease or leave your area???

Of course not. Yet this is exactly the argument being made by indignant conservatives who think smoking wherever they want is their ‘right.’

These are the same conservatives that wag their fingers at the equally stupid liberal cries over so called civil liberties that can include anything from the ‘right’ to transvestites getting a special bathroom to the ‘right’ to halt traffic for the rest of the world while you protest in the streets, depending on how nutty you are.

These judgments need an injection of common sense and critical thinking instead of the current “what I feel like doing is my right” emotion driven logic.

Sucking smoke filled chemical sticks is your right. Bringing it to other people by polluting the shared air supply is not. Second hand smoke is bothersome to most non-smokers, but more importantly affects their health. The chemicals within can sting the eyes, personally give me a headache and are an asthmatics nightmare.

Whether it can be without a doubt scientifically proven or not that second hand smoke will cause cancer and lung disease, just bringing the discomfort to everyone around you is not anyone’s right.

The fact that this new study was funded by the Tobacco industry may or may not have anything to do with the conclusion, but is a noteworthy point to mention.