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Premiere Networks has released a statement saying they will not accept any ads from the group. Who knew they had standards of what Limbaugh maligns as "political correctness."

SPLC:

“As a matter of fact, I can confirm that,” Westboro spokesman Steve Drain told Hatewatch today when asked if the church was seeking to advertise on “The Rush Limbaugh Show.” “We’re preparing our first ad at this very moment, and we’ll have a 30-second radio spot ready to go by Friday.”

Drain said he has been in contact with ad executives, but added that the Westboro spots will have to be produced before they are accepted or rejected. The radio ads would be posted as audio links Friday on the church’s websites, the Westboro spokesman said.

[...]

For its part, Westboro sees a natural affinity with Limbaugh, Drain said, but the first ad won’t mention those commonalities. “The ad’s message will be that America is doomed because Americans have cast aside the standards of God, and won’t quit their proud sinning,” the Westboro spokesman said.

Westboro also agrees with Limbaugh’s remarks about Fluke, Drain said, and will attempt to impart that message in the church’s second radio advertisement.

“That lady basically believes she wants the government to pay to kill her babies,’’ Drain said in comments that closely resembled those delivered earlier by Limbaugh. “That implies a certain level of promiscuity. She wants to fornicate her brains out, but she doesn’t want a child. Sounds like a slut to me, and God hates sluts.”

Well, really? God hates sluts? Funny, I always understood that God doesn't hate anyone. I can only assume that Drain The Westboro Spokesman might need a little "Church Chat" to remind him of who is possessing him right now. Who could it be, who could it be?

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Neil Cavuto has had enough, and doggone it, we should just quit the introspection and blame the crazy. Because you know, John Wilkes Booth didn't have talk radio, or chalkboards, or Fox News, or MSNBC, but he still shot Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, he really said that, which means to me that he also hasn't cracked a history book in a long, long time.

Forget Cavuto's effort to make us think insanity happens in a bubble outside the world we live in. His John Wilkes Booth analogy falls on its face right out of the gate, because John Wilkes Booth may not have had talk radio, but he did have access to the Secret Service, and the high echelons of the Confederacy.

John Wilkes Booth was a spy for the Confederate cause. As an actor, he had access to people and places others might not have and used his skills to shuttle information back to Confederate generals throughout the war. He wasn't crazy; he was a traitor.

This was what he believed:

"This country was formed for the white not for the black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point, as held by those noble framers of our Constitution, I for one, have ever considered it, one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation."

Not all that far off from some things we've heard in the past two years, is it?

Booth's association with the Confederacy was not recent, either. He had functioned as a double agent at the hanging of John Brown. He donned a militia uniform and assumed the role of guard, to make sure there were no attempts to rescue Brown ahead of the hanging. That was in 1859. Throughout the war, he was an ardent sympathizer and spy, and when he saw an opportunity, he aimed his gun and assassinated the President of the United States because he (violently) did not agree with him.

Not because he was "nutcase." This wasn't an "isolated incident."

What an unfortunate analogy for Cavuto to make. I can't think of one more inappropriate than that one, given Booth's role and attitude toward Lincoln. Booth was as sane as the rest of us. He was simply angry that the North had prevailed -- so angry he plotted and succeeded at assassinating Lincoln.

And why did he choose Booth? Because there was talk radio and hate talk when JFK and RFK were assassinated? Because there is talk radio and hate talk now? Because there are many, many similarities between the toxicity of today's airwaves and those of the 1960's?

But no. Instead he chooses one of the most sane and rational assassins in American history to argue his case that Saturday's shooting was just another lunatic gone crazy.

Politicususa: 40 reiigious leaders denounce Sarah Palin, and Fox's hate speech - challenge Gingrich

David Rosen: Know Nothings of 2010

The Hill's Congress Blog: GOP vilifies workers who serve the public

Rumproast: Douchehat doubles down: Straight marriage is 'thick,' Gay marriage is 'thin'

The Atlantic: The Great Lie

The Root: S.C. mystery Dem, Alvin Greene, indicted

Open Left: Google goes "evil" - proposes killing Net Neutrality. Help fight back

Balloon Juice: Whining wingnut blames the Uncle he's in business with for the results of his poor management

OurFuture: Conservanomics: A Church Without Bishops (but its got Sarah Palin and invisible Tax Fairies!)

Attytood: "Pop" Poplawski, the high-def hucksters, and the downward cycle of violence

No More Mister Nice Blog: Hearts and Minds, GOP style

Shakesville:: The Dark Ages of America

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Last night Bill O'Reilly announced he was doing an admirable thing -- covering the legal expenses of Fred Phelps victim Albert Snyder -- and in doing so, seemed to express an admirable sentiment: hate talk is a bad thing, and all sides should eschew it.

Except, of course, by Bill's lights, the flow of hate is equal on both sides:

There is far too much hatred in America. That's obvious. It comes from both sides. The Michigan militia and the Westboro Baptist Church are far-right nuts, but there are just as many far-left idiots doing vile things.

Thirty-eight-year-old Norman Leboon has been charged with threatening to kill Republican Congressman Eric Cantor. Apparently Leboon wants to kill Cantor and his family and is now being held without bail. It looks like this guy is simply nuts. Ideology might not be in play.

However, a brick was thrown through the window of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on Monday. Obviously that's political.

The point is that the situation in America is reaching critical mass. There is far too much hatred in the air.

The press is obviously pumping up inappropriate things that happen on the right and pretty much ignoring hateful things on the left. Bernie Goldberg and I established that on Monday.

But every member of the media should condemn all hate speech and violent activity. It is simply un-American.

Then O'Reilly had Laura Ingraham come on to point out that yeah, those left-wingers can be every bit as nasty as the right-wingers.

Tell you what, Bill and Laura. Come and talk to us again about how nasty and wrong hateful talk from the left is when:

-- A liberal walks into a church and opens fire on the congregation because they're all a bunch of conservatives and he wants to kill as many right-wingers as he can.

-- A liberal walks into another church and shoots a doctor in the head.

-- A liberal shoots three police officers who come to his door because he fears the president is going to take his guns away.

-- A liberal walks into the Holocaust Museum and shoots a guard because he hates Jews and believes it's time to start a race war.

-- A liberal walks into the Pentagon and opens fire because he believes the government is plotting against its citizens.

-- A pack of gun-loving liberals forms a plot to kill law-enforcement officers and start a revolution.

See, that isn't happening. But it is happening with characters from the right, opening fire on various perceived "liberal" targets, law enforcement officers, and government employees. (In order, they've happened in Knoxville, in Wichita, in Pittsburgh, in Washington, twice, and this past weekend in the Midwest.)

No doubt there are some liberals who use ugly and sometimes even violent rhetoric. But there's a big difference between what's actually happening on the ground in terms of the behavior of right-wingers and left-wingers when it comes to acting on the rhetoric: The fanatics on the right are decidedly more violent, and act out violently with much greater frequency.

Why is that? Well, there are two big differences between left-wing and right-wing hate talk, one qualitative, the other quantitative:

-- Right-wing talk is decidedly more violent and openly eliminationist -- which is to say, it speaks more openly about eliminating entire blocs of their fellow Americans, and it does so by harkening to violent themes with much greater frequency.

-- The sheer volume of right-wing hate talk is so much greater. Not only are there more examples, by an exponential factor, of right-wing hatefulness, but the talk is emanating from the upper reaches of the right-wing hierarchy: on TV and radio talk shows with hosts who spew eliminationist hatred daily to audiences of millions daily, and among politicians who represent the supposed mainstream of officialdom, and thus lend their imprimatur to such behavior.

The talk shows, in particular, are a real problem. Especially when you have hosts who repeatedly call someone a "baby killer" day in and day out.

Now that's hate talk. But of course, Bill O'Reilly will never admit to that.

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We've been reporting here at C&L for a long time on the way mainstream conservative pundits have been transmitting talking points, ideas, and a panoply of fake "facts" that originated on the extremist right and treating them as legitimate, thereby giving them credibility with the public they do not deserve, and in the process radicalizing increasing segments of the American Right.

Yesterday, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters hosted a panel of leading progressive who are ready to start speaking out about the phenomenon. It included officials from the Southern Poverty Law Center, America's Voice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Council of La Raza, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who set out "to examine how the mainstreaming of extremism impacts our security, politics, and culture."

The discussion follows on the heels of LCCR's timely report that was released earlier this week pointing out the toxic effects of mainstream right-wing punditry in helping to foment the atmosphere of intolerance, scapegoating, and violence that now surrounds the immigration debate. (Think Progress has more on this too.)

A classic example of this is about to occur: As America's Voice explains in a background briefing, this weekend's "America's Cause" conference will be a prime breeding ground for this kind of rhetoric:

For those who cover immigration issues, none of this hate speech is new. Nor is the fact that so-called legitimate spokespersons deliver hate-filled messages that flow seamlessly from CNN to the white nationalist foot soldier and to Congress in a flood of angry faxes and phone calls.

This weekend's American Cause conference is a vivid example of how the worlds of extremism, media and politics converge.

Look Who's Coming To Virginia:

According to the conference website, joining the Buchanan siblings at the meeting are such right-wing luminaries as: Tony Blankley, Tom Tancredo, Phyllis Schlafly, Terry Jeffrey, Ward Connerly, John Hostettler, Ken Blackwell, Christopher Horner, Richard Scott, Lou Barletta and Peter Brimelow. Leaders in the fight against healthcare reform, environmental protection, and more are joining unvarnished white nationalists to "Build the New Majority."

I've been talking about this subject on the radio quite a bit this past week, since it is the core subject of my book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. I've been pointing out how the underlying dynamic is almost identical in nature to the challenge confronting communities when they have to deal with hate crimes and hate groups in their midst -- writ large, as it were.

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Shepard Smith seems to understand what we've been saying for a long time.

Smith says Holocaust Museum shooting "reminds me" of the DHS report on "crazy extremists"; Herridge concurs.

Janet Napolitano apologized for the DHS report on right wing extremism after being hammered relentlessly by the Limbaughs and Hannitys. How long before right wing talkers try to blame liberals for targeting their hate speech? How long before FOX News has a little talk to Smith? Naw, he got a big contract recently. Nevermind.

(Please donate to C&L's 2009 fundraiser if you can. We need your support.)

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Mitch McConnell joined John King of CNN to discuss judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination. King asked him to comment on Limbaugh's racist rant against her. McConnell took the cowardly way out by not denouncing Limbaugh-Gordon Liddy and all the rest of them for their hate speech and instead used a different tactic.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: So, here you have a racist. You might want to soften that and you might want to say a reverse racist. And the libs, of course, say that minorities cannot be racists because they don't have the power to implement their racism. Well, those days are gone, because reverse racists certainly do have the power to implement their power. Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one.

MCCONNELL: Look. I've got a big job to do, dealing with 40 Senate Republicans and trying to advance the nation's agenda. I've got better things to do than be the speech police over people who are going to have their views about a very important appointment, which is an appointment to the United States Supreme Court.

So I'm not going to get into policing everybody's speech. The important thing here is to look at the nominee, her qualifications, read the 3,600 cases, and do it right. That's what the American people expect of us.

In other words, McConnell is whispering, "hey Rush/Newt/Cheney/Buchanan/Tancredo! Keep saying what you're saying and I'll make believe that the Senate Republicans are above it all."

Think Progress:

Asked if Sotomayor is a "racist," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) ducked the issue on CBS this morning. "I'm not going to get involved in characterizations before I've even met her," Kyl said.

CNN's transcript below the fold.

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There's an ambiguity in the rhetoric used by people who fight bigotry that people like Bill O'Reilly -- people who couldn't care less about fighting bigotry, and indeed do their best to undermine such efforts -- love to exploit. It involves the word "hate."

We use "hate" generically as a stand-in for "bigotry", in part because the word better conveys the sewer of hatefulness that is part and parcel of bigoted attitudes and behavior, and it wraps up the concepts of racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and ethnic bigotry all into a neat bundle.

So what properly should be called "bias-motivated crimes" we call, more handily, "hate crimes". Deeply racist and/or bigoted organizations like the skinheads and neo-Nazis, we call "hate groups." What is more precisely labeled "violently bigoted speech" we call "hate speech."

However, "hate" is a much broader term that encompasses a great deal more than just violent bigotry. So what happens then is that people like Bill O'Reilly -- right-wingers who do their best to undermine the work of fighting such bigotry -- exploit the resulting ambiguity.

We've seen this regularly over the years as part of the debate over hate crimes. (One of right-wingers' favorite dumbass retorts: "I never heard of a love crime.") Andrew Sullivan once even devoted an entire, maundering 7,500-word piece in the New York Times Magazine devoted to the argument that we cannot hope to regulate hate.

And then there's Bill O'Reilly, who regularly calls the DailyKos, MoveOn and other liberal organizations that merely criticize him "hate groups" -- which, as I've pointed out, not only is a gross overestimation of what the liberal groups say and do, it even more grotesquely minimizes what real hate groups say and do.

So last night on The O'Reilly Factor, he was up to the same thing: Comparing the cases of the six Americans forbidden from entry in the U.K. because of their propensity for hate speech -- including Michael Savage. O'Reilly says that's fine -- but wonders why not the people who attacked Carrie Prejean, too?

Let me stipulate: Some of the ugliness uttered by Prejean's critics was appalling, disgusting, and every bit beyond the pale as the horrified right-wingers shrieking about it since have made it out to be. (It's worth noting, however, that none of the people uttering this crap were identifiable liberals in any serious sense.) Some of it was very hateful indeed. (OTOH, while I thought Janeane Garofalo's teabagging remarks were unwise, there was nothing particularly hateful about them. Harsh criticism is not hate.)

In any event, that's not hate speech. Here's the dictionary definition:

Bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social or ethnic group or a member of such a group.

That's why the British government is barring Savage and his far-right buddies: They routinely engage in the demonization of entire blocs of people, typically brown-skinned minorities, and ultimately argue for their suppression or elimination from society.

That's not what the hatefulness around Prejean was about. It was focused strictly on her and the words she spoke publicly. It wasn't about demonizing white people or Christians, it was about what a schmuck they thought Prejean was.

What O'Reilly's doing, of course, is intentionally muddying the waters -- twisting the meaning of the term "hate speech" to be used as a weapon against its opponents. There's a word for that, too: Newspeak.